The Kano State government has laid off 3,234 staff found wanting of not being eligible to be employed into the Civil Service.
The Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Abudullahi Baffa Bichi made this known while briefing journalists, on Friday.
He said the development followed the government’s decision to implement report of the committee on screening and verification of employment conducted by the immediate past administration.
In his words, “The verification committee report was received by the Government and its salient observations and recommendations were noted and accepted. The majority of the employment was not captured in the 2023 Approved Budget and a significant percentage of those employed had neither applied nor indicated interest to serve which form a major aspect of employment requirement.
“Most of those employed did not undergo processes of screening and recruitment interviews as expected by the service regulations; employed were found to have suspicious or forged certificates, while many non-indigenes were employed in spite of a large number of qualified unemployed indigenes roaming.
“The employment did not take into consideration the actual manpower needs of the respective MDAs but was influenced by the desire to tie down the new Administration financially; our streets and those employed were wrongly placed through deployment to non-career posts or the calling of their respective qualifications.
He explained that the committee in view of the number of those employed, broke into three panels to handle the screening of the 12,566 as against the 10,800 earlier reported.
However, based on the observations and having regard to the recommendation of the Technical Committee, the SSG said that the Governor has approved the reinstatement of a total of 9,332 staff across 51 MDAs that were found eligible by the committee.
“Those found with offers of appointments but not on the payroll should be subjected to further interviews by relevant recruitment centres in the Service; Proper placement and posting, deployment of eligible staff to relevant MDAs for optimal utilization should be undertaken while in case of those employed into the lower cadre without any regard to their qualifications they should be properly placed depending on need and availability of vacancy.”
Recall that at the inception of the current administration, the government directed suspension of the salaries of some civil servants.
It said the decision was informed by the seemingly ominous spree with which the last administration undertook mass employment without recourse to necessary guidelines and service regulation.
