Fraud in civil service makes it difficult to engage new graduates — Ebonyi govt

Jacob Ogodo, Abakaliki

Ebonyi state Commissioner for Education, Dr Onyebuchi Chima has fraudulent activities among civil servants in the ministry, which according to him have made it difficult to engage new graduates to fill vacant positions in the school system.

Chima, who revealed this while briefing journalists, said the ministry had began massive auditing in the school system to fish out teachers who had retired, resigned or died, but were still receiving salaries from the State government.

The Commissioner disclosed that the State Government, Auditor general, Head of Service, the Accountant General, and Commissioner for Finance, were all involved in the exercise.

According to him, “yes, the processes of employing teachers is what we have begun. The Ebonyi State Government is currently doing teachers auditing. This is to create ways for the younger generation with better ways of teaching with new age technologies to come in and you can’t bring them into the system when the old ones refused to go.

“For you to increase the workforce. The revenue has to be increased, for you to replace teachers or anybody working in the system, the ones that retires must leave. The ones that resigns must leave, not when you resign, you resign on paper but in the system, you have not resigned.

“A situation where your brother and sister graduated five  years ago, govt could have employed them and posted them in our various schools especially in the hither lands and these young ones are ready to go any unlike the aged ones.

“Anytime a budget is made, they do budget not because the budget is there. you do budget in expectation of money, you work toward the budget based on the amount of money you get but there are basic things the government must do whether they’ve got the money or not, the government must pay workers their salaries; And the government of Ebonyi State has been paying teachers regularly whether the funding of the state dwindles, a responsible government should first ensure that the workforce are paid and that is what the governor has been doing.

He frowned at a situation where a civil servant would go to his brother that is working in the system to take away his/her resignation letter, yet they would say the worker had resigned when the person was still receiving monthly salary as a staff.

“The state government has begun a process where they are engaged in massive Auditing; where the auditor general of the state, local Govt are involved, the head of service is involved, the accountant General, Commissioner for finance and the commissioner for Education are all involved in this exercise,” he said.