Governor Yahaya Bello: govt denies retrenchment plan

The Kogi government has said that the ongoing screening of workers at state and local government levels is not aimed at retrenchment.

The Head of Service, Mr Moses Atakpa, told newsmen in Lokoja on Sunday that the exercise was to create an accurate data base of staff in the state.

Atakpa said that the intention was to also plug loopholes through which public funds were being siphoned in the guise of salary payment.

On the refusal of some categories of staff in ministries and some local governments to proceed on a 30-day compulsory leave as ordered by the state government on Feb. 15, he said that his office had started enforcing compliance.

He identified the agricultural development programme in the state as one of the organisations where the order was recently enforced, insisting that the directive must be fully complied with by all affected officers.

The order applied to 38 permanent secretaries, directors of finance and administrations and chief accountants in all the ministries, council treasurers, education secretaries, directors of local government and cashiers in the 21 local government areas.

Also commenting on the non-compliance with the directive in some local governments, the Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress ( NLC) in the state, Mr Onu Edoka, attributed the development to confusion arising from the directive.

Edoka, however, said that the NLC had waded into the matter, calling on the affected officials to immediately hand over to the appropriate officials and proceed on leave in their own interest.

He expressed the support of the organised labour for the ongoing screening of workers but said that the report of the exercise must be implemented.

He also pleaded with the state government to allow the screening to go on simultaneously with the payment of salaries which he said was in arrears of four months.