Ekiti to decentralise state, LG workers’ payments

Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose

Kamarudeen Ogundele, Ado Ekiti

Ekiti State Government has hinted that it may stop the central payment of state and local government workers’ salaries, saying local governments will be encouraged to pay their workers.

Governor Ayodele Fayose spoke in Ado Ekiti, the state capital, during a meeting with directors of finance and accounts, directors of administration, chief internal auditors and others from across ministries, departments and agencies in the state.

Fayose, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Idowu Adelusi, in Ado Ekiti on Sunday, also warned public servants against signing documents without thoroughly going through them.

According to him, any negative fallout from a signed document would be blamed on any officer that signed it.

The meeting was convened to find solutions to the problems associated with generating wholesome nominal and pay rolls by MDAs in the state, the statement added.

The governor frowned on a situation where people, who had left the service or died, still had their names on the nominal roll.

“Why should we be spending our scarce resources wastefully? We are no longer going to tolerate the issue of buck passing, where someone will claim he is not the one that generates the nominal roll and so does not properly go through it before preparing the pay roll.

“Henceforth, the nominal and pay rolls must be properly scrutinised by the internal auditors before being signed. The system has adequate checks and balances already in place and if not for collusion by concerned public servants, no sharp practices could take place.

“It is advisable that every officer properly goes through any document before signing such, as the person who endorses any document is going to be held responsible in case of any issue,” he said.

The governor, after listening to complaints by internal auditors that they did not have computers to be able to verify the soft copies of pay rolls sent to them from the Accountant-General Office, directed that all the officers should by next week be sent on computer training and afterwards be provided with personal computers.

Earlier, the Deputy Governor, Dr Kolapo Olusola, said in the course of staff verification conducted last year, a lot of anomalies were discovered in the system.

He listed the sharp practices to include over-payment, under-payment, paying dead or retired officers, over-deductions, illegal promotion, among others.