The Governor of Edo State, Monday Okpebholo has approved the employment of 360 indigenes into the Edo State’s Civil Service.
Governor Okpebholo said the beauty of the employment was that the employee would receive the new minimum wage of N70,000 and the recruits have been deployed to various government ministries and parastatals to boost the workforce.
Edo State Head of service (HOS), Anthony Okungbowa disclosed this in his office in Benin City while briefing journalists about the development.
He said: “The Okpebholo-led administration is focused on people-centered initiatives to bring about equality to the state civil service”.
He added that the previous administration of Godwin Obaseki had a contractual agreement with consultants and contractors who could hire and fire at any time because they were not government workers.
“The Governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo has also directed that cleaners should be employed into the State Civil Service as against using consultants and contractors who were paid to employ cleaners to clean government offices, and their take home pay then was not encouraging and couldn’t take them home.
“Before now, cleaners in the state were receiving N20,000 to N30,000. They were paid less because consultants are businessmen trading to make gains at the expense of Edo people. But the Okpebholo administration has decided to change the narrative by giving direct employment to enhance the lives of the people and ensure they enjoy good and practical governance.”
During the press briefing, Okungbowa added that “those qualified have been given appointment letters and they cut across the three Senatorial Districts of the state.
According to him, the present batch will not be the only people that will be employed by the Edo State government as there is another batch coming up soon.
“We want to bring in the number of cleaners required to clean government offices. 360 have been employed and assigned to their various government ministries and parastatals,” he said.
On a final note, the HOS on behalf of Edo State workers thanked the governor for embarking on the people-centered initiative of employing a good number of Edo people into the Service and ensuring they benefit from the minimum wage as opposed to what was obtainable in the previous administration.
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