Linus Oota, Lafia
A Nasarawa State House of Assembly committee investigating non payment of June salaries to Local Government staff has uncovered names of dead persons and retired staff dominating the payroll of the 13 local governments areas of Nasarawa State.
Ibrahim Balarabe Abdullahi, the Speaker of the House, stated this on Monday after recieving an interim report from the committee he set up to look into the issue.
The Speaker approved an additional three weeks for the committee to do a thorough job on the issue in order to bring sanity to the state’s unruly local government administration.
He added that the issue was affecting the entire state and directed the chairmen of Nasarawa’s 13 local governments to pay salaries this week.
“This report revealed 13 areas of concern and abnormalies such as indiscriminate promotions and implementations of promotions, duplication of names in the pay vouchers,” he stated.
“Names of retired and deceased staff continue to exist in the payment voucher of local govermments and same in development areas.
“It was also found that by the allocation of June 2019 only four local government in the state can confortably pay their salary a 100 percent.
“These are Awe, Keffi, Keana and Wamba and the other nine local governments cannot pay due to paucity of funds compared to their wage bills,” he said.
Balarabe-Abdullahi urged the committee to find a lasting solution to the problems of local government administration in the interest of peace and development.
Earlier, chairman of the committee Mohammed Alkali, while presenting the interim report, sought for additional time to allow the committee complete its assignment.
“We are yet to meet the management of the state Primary Health Care Development Agency and the Pension Board on the matter due to time factor.
“There are a lot of discoveries made by the committee while discharging our assignment,” he indicated.
On July 16, Nasarawa State House of Assembly had set up a six-man committee to investigate the finances of the state ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs over non payment of June salaries to local government staff, and other unnecessary deductions of local government funds in the state.