By Ikwen Atuaka
The ‘screening before payment’ method adopted for the payment of local government employees in Cross River state has been heavily criticized from several quarters with the Chairman, National Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE in Obudu, Comrade Ferdinand Ugbong also joining the dissenting voices.
Ugbong made his stand known while speaking with CrossRiverWatch in an interview where he challenged the process saying it has never achieved its aim.
His words “No one has ever made publication of ghost, dead or retired workers or even an amount as unclaimed salary throughout the series of audits that have been conducted on the local government council payrolls over the years.
“That suffices that the deliberate corruption in the system in the past has been typified in the image of those who blab all over the air about ghost workers and table payment. We don’t hope either that the case will be any different with the crop of Local Government Council Chairmen we have today whose fiscal freedom doesn’t go beyond the disbursement of regulated overheads”.
It will be recalled that CrossRiverWatch recently reported that mixed reactions trailed the table payment method in paying LG workers, as directed by Governor Benedict Ayade, in what he says is aimed at weeding out ghost workers.
However, unconfirmed reports reaching CrossRiverWatch suggests that the union has directed her members to attend the screening exercise with effect from Monday, July 27, 2015.
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