Governor of Gombe State Inuwa Yahaya has stated that his administration has downsized the number of ministries from 27 it inherited to 21 in order to reduce cost of governance and duplication of responsibilities.
The governor stated this yesterday while swearing in 12 newly-appointed permanent secretaries at the Government House Gombe.
According to him, the idea was part of his restructuring of the government and ensuring prudence in the governance of the state.
He lamented that his administration inherited a moribund and dysfunctional civil service that had a bloated structure and lacking in the ability to perform its constitutional responsibility of service delivery.
The governor also claimed that the civil servants lacked direction, motivation and the will to perform but that his government came up with reforms such as the implementation of the N30, 000 national minimum wage, regular payment of salaries and reducing the backlog of gratuities to motivate workers.
“There was also palpable fear for the future as entitlements upon retirement such as gratuity were not forthcoming.
“A whopping sum of over N21 billion has remained unpaid to both the state and local government retirees. However, this administration was able to settle 2014 and 2015 outstanding gratuities totalling N3.2 billion.
“Efforts are underway to settle the 2016 outstanding gratuity before the end of the year 2022. In addition, we intend to pay the 2017 balances by the first quarter of 2023,” he said.
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