A Civil Servant impersonating the Niger state Commissioner of Agriculture and 79 civil servants have been dismissed from the Niger state Civil Service for engaging in various types of fraud considered detrimental to the state government.
According to the Niger state Head of Service, Hajiya Salamatu Tani Abubakar, the offences of the dismissed civil servants include forgery of results, falsification of age and grade level.
“There was an instance where a messenger in the state judicial service was found to be collecting the salary of a High Court Judge; it is as bad as that
“Also a civil servant was also impersonating the Commissioner of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Haruna Dukku and was collecting his salary and making it look as if he was earning a double salary, what will he tell EFCC after leaving office? If such an individual was not apprehended.”
Briefing journalists on Thursday, September 10, 2020, in Minna after the State Executive Council, the Head of Service said that the dismissal is a result of the ongoing verification exercise saying that the affected workers had confessed to their various crimes.
Giving a breakdown, Abubakar said that the Hospital Management Board had the highest number of staff involved with the Ministry of Education having less.
“The MDAs affected for now include, Hospital Management Board with 45 staff involved, state Judiciary had 22 staff, Primary Health Care Development Agency had three staff, Ministry of Health has seven staff, Ministry of Education has one staff while School of Midwifery Minna had one staff and that of Tunga Magajiya had two respectively.”
The Head of Service stated that the dismissal was not witch-hunting adding that it was part of the recommendations by the Salary Management Committee set up by Governor Abubakar Sani Bello in its interim report.
She stated that the affected civil servants are awaiting their dismissal letters from the office of the state civil service commission which would be given to them in the next few days.
Source: The Nation
