Kano Govt Sacks Over 3000 Civil Servants, Orders Suspension Of Salaries

Kano State Government, on Friday, sacked at least 3,234 civil servants it claimed were not eligible for recruitment into the state civil service.

VerseNews reports that the Secretary to the State Government, Abdullahi Bichi, said the officials were sacked following a verification exercise conducted by the state government.

In June, Governor Abba Yusuf, suspended over 10,000 workers employed during the twilight of the administration of the immediate-past governor, Abdullahi Ganduje.

The governor claimed that the workers were illegally employed. He ordered the suspension of their salaries until an investigation into the eligibility or otherwise of their recruitment is completed.

On Friday, Mr Bichi, at a press conference, said that, following the verification exercise, some of the workers were found to be underage, while others were caught using forged credentials to be on the state government’s payroll’.

“A total of 9,332 staff (members) were found eligible by the committee that screened the 12,566 recruited by the previous administration of former governor Dr Abdullahi Ganduje.

“It could be recalled that at the inception of this administration, it had cause to direct for the suspension of the payment of the salaries of certain employees from the Civil Service of the State.

“Most of those employed did not undergo screening and recruitment interviews as expected by the service regulations; several students in their active study years were also found to be employed, including students of junior secondary schools, senior secondary schools, and some in their early stages of tertiary education,” says an official.

Mr Bichi said the decision was informed by the seemingly ominous spree with which the last administration undertook mass employment into the service of the state without recourse to necessary guidelines and service regulations for that exercise.

“To achieve this objective, a 22-member technical committee of competent and experienced serving and retired technical servants was constituted to screen and verify the entire process leading to the recruitment exercise.

“On the grounds of this necessity, all those who were wrongly employed had their salaries stopped pending a formal assessment of their records and processes of employment.

“The committee, given the number of those employed, broke into three panels to handle the screening of the 12,566 as against the 10,800 earlier reported.

“A number of those employed were found to have suspicious or forged certificates, while many non-indigenes were employed despite a large number of qualified unemployed indigenes roaming our streets.

“The employment did not take into consideration the actual manpower needs of the respective MDAs but was influenced by the desire to tie down the new administration financially.

“That those employed were wrongly placed through deployment to non-career posts or the calling of their respective qualifications;

“That there were cases where officers with higher qualifications attracting senior cadre were employed on the junior cadre of the service, contrary to the needs of the MDAs and approval granted for such employments,” the official said.