Rabiu Omaku
Nasarawa State Commissioner for Local Government, Community Development and Chieftaincy Affairs, Honorable Aliyu Turaki piqued with the increasing number of the workforce at the third tier of Government has uncovered that the thirteen Local Governments has a population of twenty-six thousand civil servants.
He disclosed this during an interview with a cross-section of Journalists recently, Turaki affirmed that the Local Government System was married with the illegal appointment of the workforce.
He further explained that the absorption of the beneficiaries of Governor Abdullahi Adamu’s Youth Protection program over blunt the system.
The Commissioner asserted that the state Governor in a concerted effort to address the ugly situation directed the screening committee to revert back to the 2012 payment voucher of civil servants at the third tier of Government.
Turaki affirmed that LAFIA East Development Area has the highest workforce that outsmarted the mother Local Government and Lafia North Development Area respectively.
Stating further that Lafia Local Government, Lafia East, and North have the highest number of at least 13,000 workers.
On the issues of being our brothers’ keepers, an arrangement that warrants some Councils like Lafia, Doma, and Nasarawa Eggon to pay their salaries without hassle.
Hon.Aliyu Turaki said the problem of Local Governments in the State started when the usual arrangement cease, stating that the only solution is to go back to the status quo.
It could be recalled that the Commissioner during one of the meetings at the end of the Joint Account Committee revealed that the Ministry for Local Government, Community Development and Chieftaincy Affairs discovered monies to the tune of N600 million after the payment of May salary.
An investigation gathered that the N600m were monies of civil servants whose names were omitted by the Ministry during the screening of files of workers.
The question that needed to be answered is what the wage bill of workers in the thirteen Local Governments? Why was the wage bill not dropping with the daily retirement and death of civil servants?
Only time shall tell the actual number of workforce in every Local Government as the majority of the immediate past Council Chairmen don’t have the authentic number of workers at the third tier of Government.
Local Governments in Nasarawa State are Sodom not until the exit of elected officials that the Secretariat of the Councils is experiencing the influx of civil servants.
