The All Progressives Congress (APC) has alleged that the outgoing Governor Godwin Obaseki is converting political appointees to full-time civil servants six days to handing over to new administration.
The APC made the allegation on Wednesday in a statement signed by Prince Kassim Afegbua, a member of the APC transition committee.
He alleged that the conversion was part of the governor’s effort to overburden the incoming administration with huge recurrent expenditure, when he (Obaseki) was aware that the state was already bugged down by huge debts.
“It has come to our notice that Governor Obaseki is presently converting his Senior Special Assistants (SSA) and Special Assistants (SA) into full-time civil service staff respecrively.
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“186 of such appointees were appointed by the governor in September 2024, thereby bloating the numbers of aides around him. The governor has just commenced the process of absorbing another 152 aides to compound the problem. The interview is currently ongoing,” he said.
According to the APC, Obaseki refused to recruit civil servants to fill up vacant positions and energise the civil service for eight years.
“He also refused to set up the civil service commission until two weeks ago, in the twilight of his failed administration.
“We are alerting the public to be aware of Governor Obaseki’s deliberate engagement to stifle the resources of the state and pass on huge salaries and overhead to the incoming administration.
“This is not only a wicked act but a huge disservice to the incoming administration of Senator Monday Okpebholo.
“We have repeatedly stated the position of the incoming administration that anybody who is wrongly recruited or surreptitiously absorbed into the civil service, with backdated appointment letters would be relieved of his or her responsibility,” Afegbua said.
But the Edo State Government, in
a statement by its spokesperson, Crusoe Osage, described the APC allegation as false, ssaying the Obaseki-led administration employed workers in the best interest of Edo
“They have started making spurious claims that the state is overburdened by debt and are now threatening that they will sack workers,” he said.
According to him, the comment about the government employing workers was misguided as the government started engaging new workers years ago.
“So it is disingenuous to start claiming at this last minute that the government is now just only employing new workers to set traps for the new government” he said.
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