By Moses Akarhan
The Chairman, Local Government Service Commission, Dr Bem Melladu, has promised that local government staff that were sacked during the screening but who had genuine employment letters may be reinstated.
He disclosed this in his office while playing host to the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Benue State Council who paid a courtesy visit.
He said that some local government staff who were engaged in 2011 do not have roots from the commission which is saddled with the responsibility to employ.According to the chairman, “Before now, it is difficult to say exactly the number of staff that are in the unified local government service of Benue State. We came in and it was like a marching order from His Excellency directing us to give him the exactly number of staff that are in the local government and how much they are paid. We are happy to inform you here now that we have done that… when we came, we requested the local governments to give us exactly the number of staff that they have, they brought the number of staff in an enumerated form and we went visiting them to match the faces with the names on the paper and we visited virtually every local government in Benue State. At the end of the exercise,we were able to understand that we have just about fourteen thousand (14,000) staff.
“We presented this report to His Excellency and we informed him that very many people have died, some have retired and there is need that those who are found to be very genuine should be reinstalled” he said.
He said the wage bill of the local governments , based on the recent verification, is N865,000,000, saying the report has been submitted to the governor and implementation will be in phases.
The Commission Chairman lauded the idea of organizing accountability Press briefing by the union to hold those in leadership position accountable to the people.
Earlier, State Chairman of the union, Victoria Asher, who was represented by the Vice Chairman, Martins Kajo, congratulated the Dr. Bem Melladu, over his appointment and sued for partnership with the commission to train local government information officers.
Comrade Asher informed him that the union is organizing accountability press briefing and sued for his participation.
She decried the dilapidated nature of the union’s Secretariat and appealed for assistance.
