A doctored salary bill is dazing Cross River State governor, Bassey Otu, as he settles down to work, investigations by www.calitown.com can reveal.
This situation stems from the fact that while a greater percentage of civil servants are believed to have recently disengaged from service, the wage bill has not gone down. A case in point are those engaged in 1988, shortly after Akwa Ibom State was carved out of Cross River State on September 23rd, 1987.
It was discovered that, while the governor was briefed that 40% of the state’s 22,000 workforce, including those mentioned above had or are heading for the exit door, the salary bill he was recently shown of around/a little above N5 billion monthly had stepped up instead of reducing, causing him to query this clear magical figures.
But unknown to the governor and several other persons, salary figures will not drop after an undercover operation carried out by www.calitown.com appear to show that in the Office of the Accountant General of the State, an embedded circle of persons exist, ‘responsible’ for doctoring documents that end up making the figures high.
Modus Operandi
Most civil servants approaching retirement, aware that their exit financial entitlements have in recent times not been paid, go to the AG’s office and pay a recurrent fee to have their documents doctored so they can stay on in service. Others who elect to retire, for a paid specified fee also, have their entitled pension figures jigged up. This circle of persons in the AG’s office also can guarantee the replacement of the names of dead civil servants as well as the tinkering of receiving bank accounts with a conniving glut of persons who turn around to share the money on a 50/50 basis.
This racket was also sniffed out in the state local government payroll system where heavy mutilations and falsification of personnel data has been enhanced by faceless persons for personal reasons.
However, those who are perpetrating this anomaly are acting on the back of recurrent failure by successive administrations in the state to have a workable plan in place for paying not just pensions, but importantly, gratuities too. In the last 13 years, most of those who retired, are still hoping for the day when their gratuities will be paid or have died waiting for the day of payment.
Response
Emmanuel Ogbeche, Chief Press Secretary to the governor, in a published statement made available to journalists, said the Otu administration will employ the services of the Department of State Security , DSS, to audit personnel in the state payroll system and produce a holistic nominal roll for both the state and local government.
Will the DSS audit be for free? If it is not for free, how much is the DSS charging the state government for this audit? What is the length of this exercise? Will this exercise finally be the audit that solves this racket once and for all? During the period of the audit, will salaries be on-hold and if salaries are on-hold, what economic palliatives will be in place for civil servants in the state to cushion the effect of salaries not being paid? The questions are many and answers need to be provided, sooner than later.