Bauchi govt speaks on alleged plans to retrench workers

The Bauchi State chapter of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that the verification of 41,448 workers was not meant to victimize or retrench any worker but to fish out ghost workers on government’s payroll in the state.

The PDP Publicity Secretary in the state, Yayanuwa Zainabari, who stated this while reacting to the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC), who accused the ruling party of deceit and plans to retrench workers in a telephone interview, said that the exercise was to verify workers in the state without Bank Verification Numbers (BVN).

He said despite retirement and deaths of some civil servants in the state, their number kept increasing, causing more liabilities to the government even though new workers have not been employed.

The All Progressive Congress (APC) in Bauchi had said that the suspension of salaries of 41,488 civil servants for not having Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) was a deceitful mechanism by the state government to trim down the number of civil servants in the state.

A statement signed by its Public Relation Officer, Adamu Aliyu Jallah, and made available to newsmen in Bauchi, said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government had succeeded in throwing the state into economic woes and resort to playing politics with the issue of ghost workers.

He said: “The truth of the matter is that the state has gone bankrupt due to financial indiscipline, misplacement of priorities and list for ostentatious living at public expense of the leadership that should be brought to the front burner for immediate solution to save the state from total collapse.”

The statement said that the 41, 488 civil servants placed on suspension as ghost workers were victims of political mischief of the PDP, adding that: “Most of those declared as ghost workers have been in the civil service for upward of 20 years but in this dispensation are declared as ghost workers despite their being in possession of the required BVN as a ploy to use them as guinea pigs.”