The Imo state governor, Hope Uzodimma, yesterday said that his government had paid up to date, with forty-one thousand civil servants and twenty-one thousand pensioners in the state already paid.
The Imo state commissioner for information, Declan Emelumba, spoke to newsmen in Owerri, while reacting to rumour from the opposition that Uzodimma’s government was owing workers in the state.
He said that he came out to give details of statistics of workers and pensioners payment in Imo in order to adequately inform the populace of the true situation of payment of salaries.
The commissioner for information, also pointed out that those who were complaining of non-payment were reluctant to be captured in the automated system which their colleagues had taken advantage of.
According to the commissioner, “Any verified, validated workers, all of them have been paid in accordance with the process. Those who have something to hide do not want to be part of the digital process, and the only way you can be paid is to be captured in the automated system and ones its resolved instantly you will be paid.
“The workers are about 41 thousand in number and 40 thousand workers have been verified and paid up to date about six hundred have serious issues either have conflict in details of account number or BVN issue.
“We have about 22, 000 thousand pensioners and 21, 000 have been paid up to date. There are people who have issues maybe those who retired recently and have not been captured as retirees as well as those who have not been properly captured in the automated system.”
He further said: “We have understood that some of them who have been bought over by opposition and have been receiving salaries from different places have been the ones pained by this arrangement because it has stopped their illegality.
“Some of them have allowed the opposition to using them for politics and create confusion for the government regarding the payment of salaries.
“It is not good that few people choose to sit down at home and say a lot of negative things about this government just because they are working for the opposition.
“Before now, governors release money for payment of workers and pensioners without going into details of payment how they are paying the workers, however, this has changed the government of Hope Uzodimma is ready to pay genuine workers and not those who are not working illegally.”
The commissioner recalled that “Before now, what governors do is to send money to them to pay without knowing the details of the payment and allow them to use fake names to defraud the government. Some people earn five salaries from different places, using their wives including some elements in the political class who protect.”
