Nasarawa salaries director, entire staff suspended over fake employments

Nasarawa state lawmakers have directed that the director of salaries bureau, Sulley Daheer, and all staff under him be suspended immediately pending an investigation into the fake employment of 38 secondary school teachers in the state.

The  Nasarawa State House of Assembly Committee on Education, Science and Technology, directed the state Commissioner for Finance, Haruna Adamu Ogbole, to effect the suspension.

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The office of the state salaries bureau is to be sealed pending the end of investigations.

The Chairman of the Committee, Mr Daniel Ogazi, gave the directive when the management of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education and Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC)  appeared before the committee in Lafia on Monday.

“We hereby direct the Commissioner for Finance to suspend the Director Salaries Bureau and all the staff of the salaries department pending the outcome of our investigation.

“We have invited you to know how the names of the purported and fake 38 secondary school teachers has gotten into the pay roll of the state government.

“We are going to report our findings at the end of the investigation to the assembly for necessary action, ” he added.

Ogazi has urged both the Commissioner of Finance and Education to put their House in order to avoid wastages of government resources as well as know in dept what is happening in their ministries.

“You have a lot of duties, responsibilities in your ministries in order to check and ensure that the right things are done at all times and that Nasarawa State government did not waste its money or resources” he stated.

Earlier, the state Commissioner for Finance, Haruna Adamu Ogbole and his Education counterpart, Hajiya Fati Sabo have denied knowledge of the purported employments of the teachers as well as directive for their inclusion into the payroll of the state government.

On his part, Mr Sulley Daheer, the director of Salaries Bureau, has said that he has not received any memo and has not given any directive  for the inclusion of the 38 secondary school teachers into the pay roll of the state government, the situation the house lamented saying he did not know what is happening in his department as the head.

Mr Anthony Ladan, a senior Accountant in the Salaries Bureau admitted of including the 38 teachers names into the pay roll of the state government without the directive from the Commissioner of Finance and Director, Salaries Bureau.

He said that he received a letter for the inclusion of the teachers into the pay roll from Mr John Nuhu whom he knows as a staff of the Teacher Service Commission (TSC).

Ladan added that he did not know that John Nuhu has left the service when he brought the letter containing the 38 names which he claimed was from the ministry of education through the commissioner of finance without knowing that the documents are fake.