The claims by Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (rtd), the former Sole Administrator of Rivers State that his administration recovered the sum of N5 billion from a verification exercise for workers and pensioners has sparked controversy with some of the affected workers, alleging that the figure was inflated to prove his administration exhibited fiscal discipline.
With the Rivers State House of Assembly declaring its readiness to probe how Ibas’ spent the funds that accrued to the state in the last six months following widespread allegations of corruption, the treatment meted out to some civil servants during this period is brewing simmering discontent.
Ibas is also being accused of making appointments into sensitive positions and awarding contracts on the last day of his appointment, when he was supposed to be working on his handover notes on how he administered the state in the last six months. The former Sole Administrator had claimed that the state had an “inflated wage bill” and withheld the salary of workers listed as “ghost workers”, prompting widespread criticisms among affected workers.
About 11,000 workers were removed from the payroll following the verification exercise, with Ibas claiming that his administration saved over N5 billion, but some civil servants have alleged that he inflated the figures through a verification exercise of civil servants and pensioners. Some of those removed from the payroll, and labelled ghost workers, according to some public servants in the state’s various ministries, are workers on training, leave and ill, who were unable to appear for the verification exercise.
The workers claimed that when they later presented themselves for verification, they were told that the exercise had ended, prompting them to embark on a protest against the Ibas administration two days before he left office. For missing August salary, the affected workers had stormed Government House, Port Harcourt on the eve of Ibas’ departure, protesting their unpaid salaries.
Fubara, who addressed his supporters at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, and also in a state-wide broadcast, directed the immediate payment of all outstanding August salaries for verified council staff and pensioners. Another issue that has gained traction is that Ibas waited till the very last day of his administration to make additional appointments into boards, and other key positions that he should have left for the democratically elected Fubara to handle on resumption of office.
A Government House source, claimed that Ibas allegedly backdated the date in some of the appointments he gave in “the last 48 hours that he had left as sole administrator,” adding that “some appointment letters were signed at night, on the eve of his administration’s departure.” However, it is not yet clear if the Assembly, which on the first day of resumption last week promised to investigate Ibas, will carry out its threat or what action, if any, the governor is ready to take.
