About 4,675 staff in the Abia State Local Government system are now in trouble for alleged involvement in offences ranging from certificate forgery, falsification of age and improper placement on grade levels.
A 13-man panel set up by the state government to verify the actual workforce and the service records of workers in the third tier of government sat between December 22, 2015 and August 25, 2016.
In the course of the verification exercise, the panel, chaired by Allwell Asiforo Okere, former Deputy Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly, made startling findings.
Out of 17,895 staff strength of the third tier of government, 363 were discovered to have secured employment with forged certificates from four local government areas so far verified. These include Aba South, Umuahia South, Umunneochi and Osisioma.
The panel in its report said due to limited resources, it was not able to verify all the certificates presented by workers. It said, however, that some WAEC O-level certificates, NABTEB and NECO whose genuineness was in doubt from various councils were verified.
The panel further said that few university degrees and diploma certificates were equally verified.
“There is a pressing need to verify all certificates issued by WAEC and further verify all certificates issued by NECO, NABTEB, polytechnics, monotechnics, colleges of education, universities and other professional bodies,” the panel recommended.
Out of 17,895 verified by the panel, 3,886 workers had problems with their service records and were subsequently recommended to proceed on three months suspension without salaries, while 180 staff who manipulated promotions to their favour were recommended to either be properly placed or downloaded. The panel also discovered that two staff who died long ago were still drawing their salaries.
Reacting to findings of the panel, Charles Ogbonnaya, the state commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, said that the development had confirmed his fear that the third tier of government needed to be sanitized.
He observed that while government was working tirelessly to provide the needed democracy dividends to Abians, few individuals were busy manipulating the system for their own selfish interest.
He said government had to act fast to ensure that apart from payment of salaries, the councils had to finance the provision of basic and critical infrastructure to the grassroots.
The commissioner decried a situation where some people were keeping two jobs within the system and drawing salaries to the detriment of government.
He pledged the readiness of his ministry to continue with the exercise until the entire system was sanitized, while also commending the state governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, for raising the panel that had done a thorough job. He assured that his ministry would continue carry out its constitutional responsibility.
UDOKA AGWU
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