E-PAYMENT: NO CIVIL SERVANT 'LL BE SACKED IN OYO - AJIMOBI
Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi has assured that no civil servants in the state would be sacked, except the lazy and indolent ones.
He gave this assurance, against the backdrop of the e-payment system for teachers introduced to replace the over-the-counter salary payment inherited from the past state government.
The governor in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media, Dr. Festus Adedayo gave the assurance while speaking yesterday at a public analysis of electronic payment for the state Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and the state Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM) in Ibadan.
He said that his administration would block all leakages in government coffers so as to provide a living wage for civil servants in the state.
Ajimobi said that his vision was to make the state the first in the South-Western Region in terms of salary payment and general staff welfare.
Earlier, the Special Adviser to the Governor on ICT, Mr. Adetayo Koleoso, had disclosed that N250 million and N300 million were yet to be claimed by SUBEB and TESCOM respectively.
He noted that many teachers could not get their salaries on the 25th of the month due to dormant accounts or failure to comply with the new banking regulations.
In his remarks, the state Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Adedeji Adelabu, also said that only 11 out of the 33 local governments in the state had submitted their data for the payment of teachers' salaries as at November 23, stating that the governor had signed their salaries for the November salaries since November 20, 2011.
He said that this had constituted major hindrance to the realization of the payment of salaries by 25th of the month.
Other speakers at the occasion, including the state Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, Mr. Toyin Babatunde and the state Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Mr. Bashir Olanrewaju, commended the state government for the e-payment initiative, saying it would facilitate prompt payment of workers' salaries.
Also yesterday, Governor Abiola Ajimobi paid a condolence visit to Mr. Segun Adeyemo, a Peoples Democratic Party member of the state House of Assembly representing Ibarapa East State Constituency over the death of his wife.
The deceased, Mrs. Esther Temilade Adeyemo, died in the early hours of Tuesday during child birth.
The governor said that he received the news of the death of Mrs. Adeyemo with shock and disbelief, saying that her departure at such a tender age was saddening.
He described Mrs. Adeyemo as a dutiful wife and pillar of support to her husband, expressing the regret that she was cut down in her prime by maternal mortality, which he described as a major scourge among developing countries.
Ajimobi, who lamented the sorry state of the health sector which his administration inherited, said that a wholesale rehabilitation of all the state-owned hospitals and health centres would soon be carried out, with a view to reducing the rising infant and maternal mortality rates in the state.
While praying for the repose of the soul of the deceased, he beseeched God to grant her husband and her entire family the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.