As the on-going staff verification in local governments of Kogi State continues, it has been discovered that some local government councils in the state have no proper documentation of their officers and there are no existing open or secret files for individual staff.
This was disclosed by the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Hon. Abubakar Sadiq Ainoko, when the state Executives of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, paid him an interactive visit in his office.
The commissioner affirmed a report that some persons are being called to take appointment letter, a ploy to cover ghost names being used to siphon money.
The staff screening he said is based on documents provided by the local councils, but the ministry would ensure a clean staff data that would eventually stabilize the salary system of local government councils.
Hon. Ainoko warned that any local government staffer who indulges in fraudulent acts will not go unpunished, adding that in-depth verification that would fish out fraudulent acts would be carried out in the second stage of the screening.
He thanked the state executives of the NUJ for the interactive visit and said journalists would be invited to participate in subsequent screening exercise.
Earlier, the state chairman of NUJ, Comrade Ali Atabo in his speech thanked the state government for delving into the problem of percentage payment to local government officers of which the NUJ had been agitating for a halt to the phenomenon.
He congratulated the commissioner for his appointment and said the journalists in Kogi State are ever ready to partner with the ministry, to bring sanity to the local council system.
– Culled from The Graphic
