• Some civil servants to miss March salaries!
Investigations undertaken by www.calitown.com have revealed that the Cross River State Government workforce grew from 18,000 in 2015 to a frightening 56,358 as at May 29, 2023, representing a 211% increase in eight years.
A breakdown of the 56,358 workforce shows that the State Primary Health Care Development Agency has 2,812 staff, the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, 14,328 staff, while the State Civil Service has 22,526 staff. Pensioners are 19,701, the Local Government Service, 4,131, while staff of the Traditional Rulers Council are 2,860.
Unfortunately, it was discovered that a greater part of this figure represents persons, surreptitiously eased into the service and ghost workers, used as a conduit to ferry funds into the private pockets of a highly sophisticated syndicate of middle level and senior civil servants in the state service, working with the serial connivance of bank staff in some banks used by the CRSG.
It was also discovered that while a large percentage of persons have left the state service, especially after completing 35 compulsory years of service, no concrete arrangements were deployed to recruit competent persons to fitting positions. Recall that when neighbouring Akwa Ibom state was carved out of CRS on September 23, 1987, 80% of the state workforce left to the new state. Those recruited into the CRS service, between 1987 and 1988, have all completed their compulsory years in office, leaving a gap that is yet to be filled.
Another amazing discovery was in the nominal and payroll lists of the state. In documents sighted, several names inserted into the state’s payroll, are not in the nominal roll of the state. While the nominal roll should inform what name(s) appear on the payroll, what is place are two documents that have deliberately not been synchronized.
Again, while there is a standing order from the state governor for Permanent Secretaries and Directors of Administration in all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, to compulsorily hand in nominal rolls of all staff to the Head of Service and Accountant General respectively, only about nine MDAs, out of 32, have so far complied. The implication is that several civil servants in the state may not receive their salaries for the month of March.
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