The Gombe State Government has announced the suspension of 781 civil servants for insufficient biometrics attendance in the month of September.
The announcement was made in a joint briefing by the Commissioner for Finance, Mr Muhammad Magaji, the Gombe State Head of Service, Mr Bappayo Yahaya, the representative of the Gombe State Chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress and Gombe State Integrated Payroll Payment Gateway and Human Resource Management Information Committee, G-SIPHMIS Consultant.
The Commissioner of Finance and Economic Development said that the 781 suspended civil servants would not receive their October salaries, saving the state 50.6 million naira.
“Total suspension due to insufficient attendance in the month of September 754 number of staff with salaries amounting to N49,908,186. Investigation in the month of September are those who will earn their salaries but will be investigated the total 820 number of staff their salaries amount to N56,254,753,” said Mr Magaji.
The Gombe State Government, the biometric system is introduced to help reduce and subsequently eliminate payroll fraud in the civil service, as well as checkmate the excesses of the civil servants in the state.
Mr Magaji said that all the 11 local government areas and state employees had all been captured, but that a mop-up was being organised to ensure that those not yet enrolled would be able to do so in both the state and LGA’s.
He said the enrollment would continue till November 11, after which the enrollment would end, saying “11th of November is the last day for data capture.”
The Gombe State Commissioner of Finance said by the 11th of November, all machines were expected to have arrived and deployed across all local government areas, saying about 4 thousand data capture machines will be distributed across the state including state and local government.”
In the meantime, the Gombe State Head of Service, Mr Bappayo Yahaya, urged workers to take the use of the biometric machines seriously, because the time for being absent at work was long gone.
“My only advice to civil servants will be to take this assignment very seriously. Workers should come to the office as and when due, the machines are coming,” said Mr Bappayo.
PIAK
