Governor Sule of Nasarawa State
By Umar Egbunu Muhammed, Lafia
Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, has said that the persistence hardship being faced by local government workers was responsible by the corrupt attitude of local government chairmen at the grass roots.
The governor disclosed this while swearing-in Chief Judge of Nasarawa State Justice, Aisha Bashir, and inauguration of the chairman of the Local Government Service Commission with two members at Government House, Lafia on Tuesday.
Sule explained that the significant role the third tier of governments play in providing socio-economic opportunities to the people at the grassroots has been abused, adding that the chairmen of various councils in the state have bastardized the local government administration and made it an avenue for siphoning meager resources available with nothing to show for the development of the rural communities.
The governor said: “The Local Government administration in the State has been reduced to an avenue for siphoning the Government resources.”
“It is no longer secret that our local government councils have become a ground which the opulent in the Local Government administration uses to dump their cronies under the guise of recruitments, with so many workers in the vouchers without justification for the job placement,” he added.
“Most of the Local Government staff have become like pensioners who relocated to the cities and wait for the month end to receive alerts.
“The system has been basterdised such that due process in the promotion and placement of staff has been shortchanged. This narrative must ,” Sule expressed worry.
“The consequences of the these ugly situations is the resultant accumulation of arrears of pension and gratuities, as well as other challenges associated with the delay and non-payment of Local Government staff salaries and allowances,” he stated.
The governor who was worried by the situation however, constitute an investigative Committee to appraise the system and advise Government on how to arrest the apparent decay and gradual descent to oblivion.
Governor Sule, however optimistic that the outcome of these investigation will guide Government towards repositioning the Local Government system in the state to enable it play its role of developing the grassroots.
