As efforts to fish out ghost workers in the Abia State Public Service begins to yield results, fear has gripped collaborators in the fraudulent practice that has bloated the wage bill of the state as Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has vowed not to spare them.
There are indications that highly placed government officials in the ministries, agencies and local governments are behind the syndicate that swindles the government of millions of naira through the ghost workers they planted on the payrolls.
Our source revealed that Governor Ikpeazu has vowed to prosecute any person, no matter how highly placed, that is implicated in the racket, adding that his body language that points to his political will to execute his threat is causing panic among the fraudsters.
The state government which has confirmed that it has received about N3billion from the federal government as bailout fund for payment of arrears of workers’ salaries is working hard to mop up another N3billion to be able to clear the arrears of salaries owed workers in the state.
One of the governor’s aides said that all the workers who have scaled through the biometric verification exercise have received their current salaries, adding that those who are yet to be paid would be paid as soon as they are cleared this week.
Confirming the salary situation, the special adviser to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu on media, Mr. Ugochukwu Emezue, said the government has been current in the payment of salaries from the time Ikpeazu assumed office, adding that those who have not received their May salary would be paid once their verification is through while the June salary would be paid soon.
He said Governor Ikpeazu has vowed not to owe genuine workers and advised workers who have not carried out the verification exercise to do so and receive their salaries.
He stated that there is no truth whatsoever in the allegation that the governor would not pay the arrears of salaries left by the past administration, describing it as fiction by the opposition. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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God bless you and your government sir
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