Borno govt saves N237m monthly after verifying LG workers – Committee

The Committee set up by the Borno government to verify local government staff has said N237 million is now being saved monthly after the exercise.

Committee Chairman Kaka Mallam-Yale disclosed this on Thursday in Maiduguri while submitting the committee’s report to Gov. Babagana Zulum at the Government House.

“The salary wage bill for the 27 local government areas was N1.1 billion but the figure dropped to N965 million after the verification exercise.

“This leaves a difference of N237 million per month and for the whole year it will amount to N2.8 billion,” Kaka-Yale noted.

He explained that out of the 71,558 list of staff submitted for verification only 63,291 presented themselves for the exercise out of which 56,806 were cleared for biometric capture that has yet to be conducted.

“Apart from those who did not show up for the physical verification exercise, the committee also found staff who were either over-aged and those who overstayed contrary to the provisions of the civil service rules.

“Other categories were those with fake certificates and bank statements,” Kaka-Yale said.

He recommended the setting up of a new committee to conduct the pending biometric data capture of cleared staff.

Responding, Gov. Babagana Zulum lauded the committee for a job well done but lamented that the committee failed to proffer solutions to some of the key issues it raised in the report.

Zulum noted that the committee pointed out illegal recruitment of staff were appointment letters were shared to stakeholders who in turn distributed them to relatives, friends and allies.

He said the committee was, however, silent on what needed to be done about the illegal employment.

“Salary grades were arbitrarily fixed without regards to specialisation.

“According to your report, a total of 42,059 staff fell into this category with over N602 million being paid to them as salaries but the committee is silent on its recommendation on how this anomalies could be rectified,” Zulum observed.