Ikpeazu, Abia Gov |
Accordingly, Abia State Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu in keeping with his pledge that the money will be deployed solely for the original objective of defraying of salary backlogs has set up a 7-man Committee to ensure that the process of disbursement of the funds is transparent and in tandem with that objective
The members of the Committee which will be inaugurated by the Secretary to the Abia State Government on Monday, September 21, 2015 comprises the following: Representative of the Head of Service of Abia State; Chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress, Abia State Chapter; Chairman, Trade Union Congress, Abia State Chapter; Auditor-General of Abia State or his Representative; Accountant-General of Abia State or his Representative; Statistician-General of Abia State; and Special Adviser to the Governor on Economic Affairs
The Committee's terms of reference include: To determine the exact amount owed Public Servants in the State; To determine the actual duration of backlogs owed workers; To apply bailout funds for its original intention, and to determine any other issue incidental to salary arrears in the State.
In a related development, the Ikpeazu administration claims it has saved N300 million so far from the introduction of the Integrated Payroll Verification System, introduced by the governor upon assumption of office. The money was saved from incidences of ghost workers, padding of salaries and other underhand practices during computation of wages.
A statement signed by Mr. Sam Hart, SSA Public Communication explained that "as is the practice in the civil service, whether money is available for payment or not, salaries are computed monthly and sent for payment. Thus, all the outstanding salaries previously computed in the past and sent in without payment which presently constitute the bulk of these backlogs will contain these anomalies and discrepancies that have been observed in recent times.
"It is therefore the work of this committee to take a second look at these outstanding salary claims and pass them through the fine comb that has enabled the State save N300 Million so that all excesses and irregularities are combed out before payment is made"
Hart affirms that Gov. Ikpeazu has given a commitment that by Friday, October 30, 2015, all outstanding arrears would have been offset.
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