FROM PAUL ORUDE BAUCHI
Bauchi State governor Mohammed Abubakar has apologised to civil servants in the state over the suffering they are going through as a result of delay in payment their salaries for months
The governor made the apology yesterday in a state wide broadcast, succumbing to series of embarrassing protests by civil servants and pensioners over salary arrears and complaints trailing the verification exercise.
The state government said it introduced verification exercise to ascertain the actual population of civil servants in the state and flush out ghost workers.
“The reality on ground upon our resumption of office with regards to the payment of salaries and the prevalence of ghost workers in the state and local government services has made its imperative to embark on a verification,” Abubakar explained.
The governor disclosed that first segment of the exercise was over and assured all salaries of staff of Local Government Education had been settled up to March, 2016.
He said: “At the moment we had commenced payment of the salaries for workers in the state civil service and local government education authorities for April, 2016 before a garnishee order was slapped on all the accounts of the state government by an Industrial Court in Jos over claims of some councillors of Local Government who served during the regime of Isa Yuguda and also Ahmed Mu’azu. Had we succeeded in completing the payment Bauchi State would have had only May 2016 salary as outstanding”
He boasted that Bauchi State is one of the best states as far as payment of salaries is concerned, pointing out that some states owe workers up to eight months salaries while in some states the workers are paid half salaries.
Governor Abubakar acknowledged that his administration had made mistakes in the course of the verification exercise, attributing the mistakes to deliberate actions of some government officials and human factor.
He said: “With regards to the human errors, l wish to tender our sincere apologies to those who were made to suffer unduly.
“l want to assure you that appropriate disciplinary measures are being taken against the culprits. I hold emphasis that the verification exquisite a policy of the state government that has come to stay. However, this time around willy not suspend the payment of salaries. I assure you that the payments continue hand in hand with the verification exercise “