Abia State Government said it would stop the payment of all unverified staff in the State Government employ as from the end of November.

The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Okey Kanu disclosed this while briefing the press on the outcome of this week’s State Executive Council meeting presided over by Governor Alex Otti.

He stated that it was expected that all workers in the State aught to have been verified by now having extended the verification exercise by two weeks.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Special Duties, Dr. Betty Emeka Obasi informed that although the verification exercise started by July this year, there were still some workers who were yet to participate in the exercise.

She said the names of the unverified staff had been put up in the MDAs notice boards, adding that they are expected to submit their documents to their heads of establishments, who would in turn hand same over to the verification committee.

“We expect that everybody that is a staff in the state ought to have been verified. We have a good number of people that haven’t done that. Some didn’t appear at all, some did and could not complete for various reasons,” she added.

The Senior Special Assistant revealed that government decided to stop at only yanking off the names of the unverified staff from the payroll without prosecuting them for taking salaries without being duly recognized as bonafide workers of Abia State Government because Governor Otti led government is compassionate.

The Commissioner for Information and Culture equally announced that the 197 schools recently shut down by the State Government had been given a window of opportunity to get their acts together, adding that those that meet the guideline may be reopened. (Daily Sun)

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