THE TORCH VOL XXVI FROM THE DESK OF THE ENLIGHTENED WORKERS’ FORUM FAYOSE REWARDS HIS AGENT ON WAGE BILL PADDING WITH PERMANENT SECRETARY POST

The appointment of the last set of four Permanent Secretaries in Ekiti State witnessed the playing out of the old age which says 'scratch my back and I will scratch your own'.

For the first time in the history of Ekiti State, a grade level 14 officer was appointed as Permanent Secretary in flagrant disregard to the necessary criteria that qualify one for this esteemed position. This has created a serious confusion in the civil service and a cold war is currently brewing in the Accountant Cadre because this appointment has placed this officer over his numerous seniors.

Workers in the State had been wondering why the appointment of this particular officer should be a priority to Governor Fayose. This had indeed prompted this Forum to conduct a discreet investigation.

It is quite interesting to note that our investigation took us to the old issue of over inflated wage bill which we had written about in many of our past write-ups. This officer had been the trusted point man of Fayose in this regard. He is the one returning the excess fund between actual and the declared wage bill to the Governor in raw cash. He had secretly and committedly played this role since 2014 without leakage of information . so he had become a highly trusted agent and his appointment is indeed a pay back.

This development had vindicated our claim which we had echoed several times  that the State 's wage bill was in the neighbourhood of N1.8b because this officer had been returning on monthly basis a sum of N800million in raw cash. 

Ever before now, we had premised our conclusion on the fact that the present government claimed to be paying a wage bill of N2.6billion which was same with what the last administration paid. From this same amount, the latter serviced the followings:

Payment of salaries to over 600 political appointees;

N5,000 each to 20,000 aged people;

Salaries of 800 Peace Corps members;

Salaries of 425 Road Management Officers;

Salaries of 1,000 street sweepers;

Stipends of N10,000 each to 10,000 volunteers;

5,000 Youths in Commercial Agriculture earning N10,000 each;

Salaries of 150 Paramedics of the Fire Services;

Salaries of the sacked 180 workers of the State House of Assembly Service Commission;

N20,000 each to 60 casual workers of the Government House.

Apart from the fact that all these categories of salary earners were sacked right from the first day of the present administration, the government conducted a screening exercise as a result of which 500 ghost workers were said to have been discovered.

Besides, this Forum discovered that no fewer than 8,000 workers had retired from civil service between 2014 and 2017 because all those employed by the Government of Ajasin in the old Ondo State in 1980 and 1981 had been retiring since 2015. Yet the wage bill still remains at N2.6b.

We can now see that, Ekiti State has no justification to owe salaries, if Fayose had been honest. The allocations to the State would definitely have enough to handle the wage bill of  N1.8b now, from the 35 months salaries he had paid so far. Since the inception of his government, he had stolen N800m in 35 places amounting to N28b on salary alone. Here is a man pronouncing a ten-year ban on his predecessor over an unsubstantiated diversion of N2.7b.

This is criminal and it is wickedness carried out too far. Imagine the level of pains the innocent workers had been thrown into all these years as a result of this high profile stealing.

Certainly, this is the major reason he is hell bent on installing his surrogate as his successor because he needs somebody to help him cover up this dirty track record.

This, therefore, is a clarion call on the entire workers of Ekiti State and the people at large to say no to this continued bastardization of the civil service and pilfering of the allocations being accrued to the State. People are hereby enjoined to shine their eyes.

Mike Bamidele 

Coordinator, Enlightened Workers' Forum

26/1/2018