According to Cross River State Governor Bassey Otu, he was mislead into thinking that more than 40% of the government workforce had retired.
The governor claimed that after learning that the number of civil servants had significantly decreased, he was astonished by the rise in the nominal roll when hosting organized labor in his office.
“When I took office, I was told that many people had retired, but when I looked at the payroll this month, I saw even more employees than in the previous month. The governor questioned, “I was wondering why we should now have such a tremendous number on the payroll with an accompanying big wage expense if so many have retired as recorded.
In a press release signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Emmanuel Ogbeche, made available to journalists Wednesday, the governor said his administration will employ the services of the Department of State Services (DSS) to audit personnel in its payroll system and produce a holistic nominal roll for both the state and local government.
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He said the exercise which is to be conducted by the federal agency will help forestall all forms of irregularities noticed in the staff payroll system across board.
“We have resolved that everybody should go to the Department of State Services for verification and screening so that if your paper has some issues, from there you can go to court.
“That will be the best for us because the exercise will ensure that biometrics and other necessary screening requirements are conducted to check all forms of irregularities and abnormalities in line with relevant civil service rules and labour laws. In the end, we will know the actual staff strength of Cross River.
“Personnel audit has been a little bit of a tricky area. So, we need to put our heads together to produce a holistic payroll system, and I strongly solicit your maximum cooperation.
On the issue of employment, the governor said, “We are currently looking at the gap analysis which is why we had to suspend all forms of employment so that in the end government will only employ based on needs because with our scarce resources, we must spend judiciously.”
Earlier, the organized labour in a 21-point position paper signed by the State Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Olayi Gregory, advised the governor to reduce the cost of governance by checking unnecessary waste.
He also requested the governor to consider promotion of teachers to Grade Level 17 as it is obtainable in the federal service to boost morale of teachers.
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