The Kano State Government has constituted a 22-man Committee to verify and screen about 10,800 workers employed towards the end of the tenure of the immediate past administration of Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.
The Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Dr. Baffa Bichi, said the Committee was primarily constituted to ascertain whether the employment of the identified 10,800 workers followed due process.
The SSG, who inaugurated the Committee in his office, said: “Recall that the present Administration had after its inauguration, inherited a number of challenges from the immediate past administration that had a spillover effect on the state’s polity, which necessitated initiating measures aimed at addressing them.
“Such challenges include unwarranted deductions of salaries and pensions of civil servants and pensioners respectively, non-evacuation of refuse that littered the nooks and crannies of the state.
“Others are abandoned healthcare and emergency services, non-supply of diesel to support the street lights in the metropolis and so on.
“Other issues, which informed our gathering here were the last minute employment of over 10,000 civil servants without laid down rules and regulations governing employment into the civil service.
“Government viewed this as an anomaly and therefore resolved to set up a committee to study and review the entire process, with a view to determining whether or not the employment process was informed by the expressed manpower need and requirement of the affected Ministries, Departments and Agencies are just based on certain primordial considerations suggesting nepotism as alleged.
“Other mandates assigned to the committee include compiling the list of the already employed staff as well as establish their financial implications on State finances and ascertain whether budgetary provisions were adhered to:
“The committee should identify those already enlisted into the state payroll, sequel to their recruitment cum those that are yet to receive appointment letters following the stoppage of the exercise by the present government.”
The Committee, headed by the Chairman, Civil Service Commission, Alhaji Umar Shehu Minjibir, was given three weeks to complete its assignment.
In his response, Chairman of the Committee said, “certainly, on behalf of the members of the Committee, I will like to assure you (SSG) and through you, to the state Governor, Abba Yusuf, that we have accepted to serve in this Committee, and we will do our best.
“I want to assure you also that we are going to do justice to those civil servants that were employed doing the last lap of the immediate-past administration, and that we will do our assignment without fear or favour.
“I assure the SSG and the governor that we will do this assignment within the stipulated time.
“We are not going to disappoint you. Like I said, we will look at both sides, the government side, and the side of those civil servants who were employed by the immediate-past administration,” Minjibir said.
