The Congress of Newly Employed Civil Servants in Delta State yesterday demanded for a holistic probe of the State Civil Service with the intent of flushing out corrupt management staff and ghost workers from the system and opening employment opportunities for genuine Deltans.

The congress, comprising workers employed by the immediate past administration of Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan from December 2014 to last May, in a statement in Asaba urged the State Governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, to reconsider his decision and reverse their suspension. The congress said in the statement signed by its Chairman, Mr Regha Obukohwo, Secretary, Agba Okeme, and three others, many of the sacked workers resigned from their previous jobs to pick up the civil services job in the state.

Debunking insinuations that the state is broke and could not pay its workers, the aggrieved suspended workers said: “We request the Delta State Accountant General and Head of Service to provide answers to high numbers of ghost workers under their watch and account for the Internally Generated revenue of Delta State (IGR) which is over Seven Billion Naira Monthly.

“The claim of N12 Billion naira allocation for the month of May 2015 by the Delta State Government officials that over N5 Billion was spent as Salary without disclosing the Delta State Internally Generated Revenue which is estimated at N7 billion only is a mirage. Subsidy Re-Investment Programme (SURE-P) fund should be made public for the good of Deltans. We equally want to know the total personal income tax of Delta State.

“Debt management office put Delta State external debt profile at $15,785,110.00. This record puts Delta State amongst the third least indebted State in Nigeria. We question the claim of the Delta State government officials of using N5.2 billion to service its debt profile.

“We urge Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to direct HECKERBELLA LTD, the firm handling the N1.4 Billion Delta State Biometric Identification Payroll Automation Time and Attendance System (BIPATAS) project to release its report on the ministries, departments and agencies they have already concluded Biometric report. HECKRBELLA is a firm contracted to fish out ghost workers from the Delta State Civil Service.”

Continuing, the congress alleged “that Governor Ifeanyi Okowa was wrongly advised by the Accountant General and others that Delta State is bankrupt and could not afford to pay the newly employed civil servants.

“That record at our disposal shows that the last major recruitment into the Delta Civil Service was conducted in 2010, thus the immediate past Governor did what was right to recruit after five years. He did not have the intention of creating financial burden for the Senator Ifeanyi Okowa’s administration.

“Statistic shows that from 2010––2014 over 2800 Civil Servants have retired from Delta State Civil Service and over 1000 retirees had died since 2010. We call on the Accountant General of the Delta state and the Head of Service to provide answers to rising monthly wage bill of Delta State irrespective of the large number of people who have retired from service and those who have died since 2010.

“That the Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan’s administration intended to recruit 1,200 Civil Servants with an estimated average monthly wage put at N60, 000.00 per month amounts to N72 million only with Delta State Civil Service retirement rate of 2,800 from 2010 to 2014 at an estimated average monthly salary of N60, 000.00 it amounts to a total N168 Million. With these records, the wage bill of Delta State civil service wage bill would drop by N96 Million after employing 1,200new staff.”

•Photo shows Governor Okowa.

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