Governor Muhammad Abdullahi Abubakar of Bauchi State has directed the immediate payment of salaries to the over 62,000 civil servants who have been cleared in the workers’ verification exercise.
The Bauchi State Head of Civil Service, Mr. Abdon Dalla Gin who addressed a press conference after a stakeholders’ meeting on the verification exercise, said Governor Muhammad Abubakar had approved the payment of March 2016 salaries to all cleared workers.
He disclosed that in the course of the verification exercise, 105,000 was reported as the workforce for both the state and local government areas, but that 62,000 had been verified and paid their salaries for January and February 2016 while 43,000 were yet to receive their salaries as they had not been verified.
In Nasarawa State, over 1,600 ghost workers were detected through the biometric verification exercise conducted by the government in collaboration with Skye Bank Plc, a development which the bank says will save the state N83 million monthly.
The Executive Director of Skye Bank, North, Idris Yakubu who made the Nasarawa situation known to newsmen shortly after presenting the final report of the workers’ verification exercise to Governor Umaru Tanko Al-makura yesterday in Lafia, said the report, if properly implemented, would save the state N83 million monthly or N990 million annually. Yakubu said the committee verified 58,000 genuine workers and pensioners in the state while over 1,600 were invisible.
According to him, 16,000 workers from those who have not been paid their salaries are due for BVN certification which is expected to be concluded within the week to enable them receive their salaries.
He said the meeting had resolved that the verification committee will fast track the process and called on workers to take the exercise in good faith, stressing that whatever savings realized at the end of the exercise would help in ensuring the sustenance of salary payment and enable the government to execute more capital projects. – Daily Trust.
