By Edem Edem, Calabar
Audit consultants engaged by the Cross River State government have taken N65 million into their private accounts with the connivance of the state government, according to the state branch of the Nigeria Labor Congress, NLC.
The money is made up of illegal deductions of N500 from each government worker through the payroll and amounting to N9million monthly since October 2016 till date. The total sum for the seven months period is N63million.
Disclosing this on Monday while speaking at the workers’ day celebration, the Chairman of the NLC Comrade John Ushie said: “The consultants commenced the audit exercise without showing Labor or workers its terms of reference neither has the consultants published its findings till date, hence, the continued complaint by government of bloated wage bills. From our calculation N63 million has been taken away”
Labor expressed regret for conferring the state governor, Professor Ben Ayade with the ‘Best Friendly Governor’ last year and chided him for failing to pay many workers and pensioners correctly due to data mix-up.
He listed other shortcomings of the government to include failure to carry out monthly update of salaries as well as wrong computation of check-off dues and other deductions as at when due.
“It is clear that the consultants have nothing to offer and will lead us to nowhere, hence urgent need to terminate their contract”
Labor recalled that in the federation, payrolls are legal responsibility of the Accountant General’s office but in Cross River State consultants control the payroll with the platform domiciled in Enugu state.
“Before now, our payroll system has been the best in the entire nation such that Balyesa, Rivers, Taraba and Plateau as well as states in Eastern zones came here to be trained and understudy us. regrettably, one of those states we trained is handling our payroll.”
After listening to the NLC speech, the deputy governor Prof Ivara Esu who represented the governor refused to join word with Labor leaders but promised to implement their demands. He however stated that the state has a better, motivated work force. “We can say without any fear of contraction that we have a better motivated work force”.
“From the gloomy days of delayed salaries, stagnation in promotions, truancy on the part of workers and late coming, among other disgusting habits and tendencies, has emerged a new civil service of tremendous promise” he stated.
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