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From Judex Okoro, Calabar
Cross River pensioners have decried the poor treatment meted out to them at the on-going verification of pensioners and serving civil/public servants across the state.
The pensioners expressed fears that the exercise, as usual, may not achieve results due to poor planing.
The exercise, which began simultaneously on Monday, October,16 for retirees and state workers in Cross River North, has continued to witness large turnout at Ogoja and Obudu centres.
In a statement dated October 11, 2023 and signed by the Head of Service, Innocent Eteng, the government directed staff of local government councils, State Universal Basic Education Board(SUBEB), health workers under the Primary HealthCare development Agency,
Nurses, state and local government pensioners in the five local government areas of Cross River north to appear for verification and image capturing.
The notice further directed those in Ogoja, Yala and Bekwarra to assemble at Ogoja local government Secretariat for the verification, while Obudu local government serves as venue for Obudu and Obaliku.
The exercise according to Eteng is targeted at achieving a verified payroll of staff employed by the state government and to eliminate ghost pensioners and workers.
However those attending the exercise are apprehensive of government’s ability to achieve the expected outcome citing the lack of proper planning and added that the exercise may not be different from previous ones.
They observed that unless government takes a bold step to fish out the syndicates behind inflated wages, the question of ghost names on the state payroll will persist.
They lamented that they have been reporting for the exercise since it began on Monday, October 16 and the organizers are no where to be found neither are the schedules released to know what steps pensioners should take in the process.
A retiree from Bekwarra LGA, Linus Ogar Eneji, brought on a wheelchair, said he had been reporting every day for the exercise without being attended to due to the large crowd.
Eneji, who retired from the ministry of education in 2007, claimed that the the present verification was not properly planned.
“Since I have been attending verification exercises from 2007, I have not seen where people were lumped together everyday for screening.
“I expected them to allocate one week for each local government area if they want to do the proper thing”.
Also narrating his ordeal, a visually impaired retiree, with partial stroke from Ogoja, Jacob Okache, said it was proper for government to conduct periodic verification to streamline the wage bill, but queried the organizers for failure to spell out the days for the respective local government areas, adding that bringing retirees together with those still in service could defeat the objective of the exercise.
“Unless they adjust and come out with a clear table for each LGA, the category of personnel to be attended to, the aim may be defeated.
“As you can see, I cannot even navigate my way due to my condition, yet I have been here every day without attention.”
Reacting, the leader and supervisor of the team, Mr. Martin Atu, while addressing concerns of participants, said everyone would be verified and captured.
He assured that the team was committed to it’s assignment and made it clear that they have been working late into the night since the commencement of the exercise.
According to him, the exercise is intended to come out with a reliable data of the state workforce, calling for patience.
