Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State said the state government would disengage 539 civil servants who were not able to scale through the recently concluded verification for civil servants.
Okowa said this on Monday in Asaba when he received the final report of the Verification Committee, which had Chief Nkem Okwuofu as the Chairman.
He also said about N12.3 billion would be saved by the state government based on the failure of the affected staff to scale through the verification procedure.
The governor ordered the names of those 530 staff discovered to have falsified their appointment records and those that failed to appear before the committee be expunged from the payroll.
Okowa decried the falsification of documents and the laxity on the part of those who aid and abet such actions in the public service.
The governor said it was very disturbing that some staff would connive in the falsification of records, particularly of those that had died or retired but found to still be receiving salaries.
The governor, therefore, directed the Head of Service to take appropriate disciplinary action against the Heads and Directors of affected Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
Okowa said: “It is quite unfortunate that at this point in time we are still dealing with this situation in our public service where people can still work with other people to change their date of birth and date of appointment.
“I frown at such and I believe that the public service and its management must continuously frown at such act because it is not possible for any staff to unilaterally change his or her date of birth or appointment.
“So, obviously, there is a collusion in the entire system and it worries me that at this point in time this is still ongoing.
“Head of Service, with effect from today, the 402 absentees have to be disengaged from the payroll completely and the people that are due to retire must be expunged from the payroll between today and tomorrow.”
Okowa commended the Committee for the success of the and exercise assured the members that the state government would implement their recommendations to make the civil service better.
Earlier, Okwuofu, while presenting the report, disclosed that a total of 4,742 persons were screened, out of which 137 were asked to proceed on retirement.
He added: “Eight hundred and ten had their dates of birth and dates of employment corrected with 2,085 verified and affirmed while 402 were absent.”
