The interim report of the Nigeria Union of Teachers Committee set up to ascertain the exact staff strength of teaching and non-teaching staff in each of the 21 local government areas in Kogi State, has recommended a table payment exercise as the only option for unraveling the lingering puzzle.
Just as it has adopted recommendations by the screening committee that all Education Secretaries in the state should be relieved of their appointments while new ones be appointed immediately.
Executive Chairman, State Universal Basic Education (SUBEB), Alhaji Jibril Usman while presenting the report in Lugard House Lokoja also pointed out that Education Secretaries would be made answerable for any misdemeanor that may be discovered in future.
According to him, although the screening committee report made useful recommendations which have either been entirely accepted or modified by government, it has considered including additional salient recommendations for actualization by the implementation committee of the white paper.
In line with this, he maintained that a table payment exercise should be carried out and used as a pedestal to ascertain the exact staff strength of teaching and non-teaching staff in Kogi State since the screening committee could not come up with any emphatic and final finding on the issue.
In the same manner, since the screening committee came up with discordant and irreconcilable figures that did not specify the actual salary profile, the white paper report recommended that the payment of bonafide teaching staff be carried out school by school using a well selected team consisting of state officials, district school supervisors, Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and Nigeria Union of Local Government Employee (NULGE) representatives.
The SUBEB boss said it was the view of Government that the issue of identifying ghost workers in the system be addressed finally through the proposed table payment since the earlier screening committee did not state the names of ghost schools or teachers. Just as it did not give an explanation as to how it arrived at the 893. it gave as figure of ghost workers.
Alh. Usman further disclosed that the proposed table payment would be critical to the final compilation of authentic pay roll and list of teaching and non-teaching staff adding that it would also the view of government that Personnel Assistant (PAs) should no longer feature in school staffing.
In addition, he revealed that government accepts the recommendation that there should be a verification of teachers’ certificates from tertiary institutions as well as approved that a biometric data-capture of all teaching and non-teaching staff be carried out.
On the fate of staff employed from 2009 till date despite government embargo on employment, he said government was of the view that those in that category should have their appointments regularized with the consent of the local government chairmen and SUBEB management within the next three months. Just as future recruitments are to be strictly based on the capacity of each LGA and availability of approved vacancies.
Earlier, Chairman of the white paper committee and Head of Civil Service, Dr. Moses Atakpa, used the occasion to appeal for patience and understanding of teachers stressing that the on-going exercise in addition to finding lasting solution to the current challenges would enhance their status.
Responding, Governor Idris Wada while reiterating the commitment of his administration towards uplifting the welfare of teachers in the state noted that the goal can only be achieved if the necessary data and information was made available to the state government.
To this end, he charged members of the implementation committee of the white paper to carry out a thorough exercise to ascertain the actual number of LGEA staff, salary profile of the 21 LGEA staff, identify ghost schools and precise number of ghost staff among others.
