…..APC condemns process as Adeleke orders review, decentralization
From Lateef Dada, Osogbo
In apparent fear of the outcry that greeted the staff audit in Osun State, Governor Ademola Adeleke, has ordered immediate review of the process.
The civil servants had on Thursday staged out of the Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding where the audit was held, accusing the consultant, Sally Tibbot Consulting, of making the process difficult for refusing to decentralize it and ‘unnecessary demand.’
Reacting to the development, the state Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, on Friday, said the disruption that marred the staff audit was an indication that Governor Adeleke has recorded another usual failure in his seven-month-old administration.
APC said, “If a state governor could not successfully conduct a common staff audit exercise, what else he would be able to do correctly?
“It was the highest level of insolence, incivility, and impertinence for Adeleke to have brought into the state an imperious, haughty, and pompous operator of a consulting firm who thinks she could hide under the guise of being the relation of one of the governor’s wives and be heaping insults on top level civil servants in the state,” APC said.
However, Governor Adeleke, in a statement by his spokesman, Olawale Rasheed, on Friday, restated the commitment of his administration to the enhancement and protection of workers’ interests and ordered an immediate review of the process.
According to the statement, the Governor had met a joint meeting of labor leaders and the auditing firm on Thursday afternoon and directed the joint committee working on the exercise to address all sticky areas and come up with acceptable modalities for a hitch-free exercise.
The Governor expressed displeasure at the inconvenience the exercise has caused public servants and instructed the Head of Service to ensure adjustment of the procedures to ensure the well-being and comfort of the workforce.
“I have read a lot of comments and complaints from the public service. I have also listened to you all at this meeting. We must adjust the procedures to have a mutually acceptable exercise. We should all remember the purpose of this audit exercise which is to block leakages to expand staff welfare.
“To that extent, the joint committee should meet urgently to decide on two items. First, a new acceptable timetable should be created that will take into account the diversity and peculiarities of each government agency or ministry.
“Secondly, the committee should also brainstorm on decentralization of the exercise on a zonal basis to reduce the burden and logistics of movements to the capital city,” Adeleke ordered.