Bamigbola Gbolagunte, Akure

Ondo State government has suspended 25 Civil servants in its employ for allegedly defrauding the state government.

Among the affected civil servants is a senior official said to have ‘employed’ his wife, placed her on Grade Level 14 and has been collecting salaries without going to work.

It was gathered that the state government was not aware of the employment of the said person.

The Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu on Special Duties, Doyin Adebowale who paraded the 25 civil servants caught for various offences including stealing millions of naira, employment racketeering and use of fictitious names in the pay roll of the state government said the suspects will be handed over to the police.

A staff of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) was also suspended for allegedly stealing the sum of N104million from the coffers of SUBEB.

Odebowale told reporters that the suspended civil servants would be prosecuted and severely dealt with.

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According to him, then suspects defrauded the state government of N104 million allocated for capital projects.

He said they were caught due to reforms carried out by the Head of Service, Mr. Alex Aragbaye.

The SSA said, “We are here because of certain suspects the Governor directed that we prosecute. In the civil service there has been this stealing going on undetected. They do it in several ways especially through staff list.

“We have people that imputed fictitious figures into the payroll. When the new Head of Service got into office, he put in place certain reforms to make us know those in actual service.

“We were able to discover that certain elements whose names appear on staff list were never employed. A particular man employed his wife and placed her on grade level 14. She never attended interview and she has been collecting salaries.

“One of them moved N104 million out of SUBEB account. We have other instances of other millions of naira emoved illegally from the coffers of the state government. These were pure stealing.They have been suspended from service.

Odebowale added that they would be prosecuted and face other disciplinary actions.