By Our Correspondent in Minna
Niger State Government has says it has dismissed 80 civil servants across different cadres in ministries, boards and parastatals,who it claims defrauded the state of millions of naira, over the years.
The State Head of the Civil Service (HoS), Hajiya Salamatu Tani Abubakar, disclosed this on Wednesday while addressing journalists at the Government house, Minna, after the weeekly State Executive Council (SEC) meeting.
She said the ongoing verification was aimed at weeding the state of ghost workers adding that the exercise was contained in the interim report by the Salary Management Committee, set up by Governor Abubakar Sani Bello.
Salamatu revealed that the council also resolved to act in accordance with the committee’s recommendations to sack the affected workers after most of them made confessional statements to have committed the fraud.
The list of the affected workers, according to her has been sent to the State Civil Service Commission to prepare their sack letters, noting that the office of Auditor General of the state was in charge of the exercise.
The Ministries, Departments and Agencies affected, for the meantime, include; Hospital Management Board which has 45, the highest number of staff with questionable sources of entry into the state civil service involved.
Others, she said are; Niger State Ministry of Justice 22, Primary Health Care Development Agency 3, Ministry of Health 7, Ministry of Education 1, while Niger State School of Midwifery Minna and that of Tunga Magajiya has 1 and respectively.
The HoS, who said she could not give exact of money recovered or the total number staff to be affected in the ongoing exercise,however, assured that there “is no going back in ensuring that perpetuators of such crime in the service are fished out and punished.”
Meanwhile,the state government says it has accessed N1.5b CBN loan to boost and accelerate agriculture as well as empower 10,000 youths in the state.
It said the Accelerated Agriculture Development Scheme for 2018 would also boost the production of rice, maize and soya beans across the state.
The Commissioner for Livestock and Fisheries, Alhaji Haruna Dukku, said this during press briefing at the Government house, Minna after the state council weekly meeting.
He explained that no fewer than 10,000, youths between 18 to 35 years, benefitted from the scheme.
Dukku said the various agricultural activities, mainly for infrastructural development at different local communities in the state, reaffirmed the state government’s determination to give agriculture the desired priority in line with its agriculture transformation agenda.
Dukku said the 45 years-old abandoned Rice Mill in Bida, constructed by the Korean government and handed over to the state government, would receive attention of the state government after the Korean Embassy in Nigeria had expressed worry over the facility’s abandonment.
The project, he said, had been handed over to a reputable rice mill,Elephant Group Company, based in Ibadan, Oyo state, adding that efforts were ongoing to sign the Memorandum Of Understanding (MoU) to perfect the agreement.
