Staff

The Cross River Local Government Service Commission says no fewer than 4000 staff have been recruited for the 18 council areas of the state in the last one year. The Chairman of the commission, Mr Darlington Eyo, disclosed this during an interactive session with newsmen in Calabar on Tuesday. Eyo noted that the commission inherited a depleted local government staff of about 9000, adding that with the 4000 personnel already recruited, efforts were still ongoing to fill the remaining vacant spaces. He said that the mass recruitment approved by Gov. Bassey Otu under his “People First Mantra” was the first in 37 years. “The councils we met had a depleted workforce, so the governor deemed it necessary that we fill the vacancies and also ensure a sustainable means of livelihood for the people. “In actual fact, we were supposed to meet about 12,000 or 13,000 staff, but what we met was about 3000, so we approached the governor on this, and he saw reason for the recruitment of more hands to fulfill the obligations of the local government areas. “We have systematically carried out this and paid over 3000 of them already that have met the requirement, while we strategise on more recruitment processes. Yes, the process is ongoing as it is not possible to fill all the 9000 vacant spaces at once,” he stressed. On the allegations of buying employment, the chairman said there was nothing of such to the best of his knowledge. He said the commission had operated an open process in such a way that a son or daughter of nobody has been gainfully employed. According to him, I won’t rule out the possibility that some individuals outside the commission might be trying to undermine it or act as its agents. “The good thing however is that anyone who patronise such a person will be fished out as we have a system in place that will expose them.” Eyo added that the local government service commission uncovered 800 ghost workers during the audit of the staff payroll. “This is the figure that we have expunged from the local government’s payroll, and the audit is ongoing because we can’t continue to have a huge wage bill when the number of staff remains low. “In all of these achievements, including the various training programmes for staff of the council areas the governor provided the needed environment for us to diligently carry out our mandates,” said.