Delta State government is very much in support of the decisions of the screening committee it set up to screen civil servants using primary six as benchmark.
The state commissioner for Works, Rural Roads and Public Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu who took time to harp on a number of issues of government actions, confirmed this during the press briefing today in Asaba, the state capital.
According to him, the issues arising from the ongoing screening of civil servants has the blessing of the government and the government is very much determined to carry it through.
He argued that a situation where individuals have tempered with their age and making it look as if they left primary six at the age of 6 years which means as soon as they came out from their mother’s womb, they started primary school and you know, that that is not possible and so we are able to use the primary school certificate as a benchmark to be able to determine at what age the individual was born, “Because by the time you take away at least 11 or 12 years, you’ll be able to now add the remaining to know where the person may have gotten to, and we are not going back on that”.
Mr Aniagwu therefore advised; “If there is anybody that have been advised by the screening committee to go or to proceed on retirement, I’m now making it very, very clear that the government supports that decision of the screening committee.
“There is no idea of thinking of how to do some form of backward integration for you to return to the service because we have many other persons who may need to come in.
“And besides, there are individuals who over time have also taken, what is called leave absence either to study abroad or to undertake some form of courses, some of them for more than 5, 6, 7 or 8 years have not reported for duty and heve been taking salaries.
“They achieve this in connivance with some other persons in the service and we are saying that that is not going to happen again. You cannot continue to live in UK or live in the Americas and continue to collect or receive salary from our payroll. That is not good. That is not something that we want to continue to condone.
“We have also said that in the course of this screening any of such persons will not only be taken out of our payrolls, we will also take necessary action to recover funds that they may have earned illegally. So in the event that you have brothers or sisters who have been advised to retire on account of this screening, tell them not to be running up and down that that has the blessing of government”.
Then on the issue of the dress code, he advised civil servants to be decently dressed. He observed that the circular that was recently released to that effect was just to re-emphasize, what has always been in the Civil Service rules, stressing that it’s nothing new.
The Public Information Commissioner also dismissed the rumor that two commissioners were involved in fisticuff.
No two Commissioners fought. Not last week. Not last year. Not today, not any time. That did not happen, he said.