PDP, APC Bicker Over Lalong’s Recruitment Of Civil Servants During Last Days In Office

T he Youth Initiative Against Violence and Human Rights Abuse (YIAVHA), a non governmental organisation based in Jos, has cautioned Governor Simon Lalong in these last days of his administration, not to indulge in activities that may jeopardise stability of the new administration.

The executive director, YIAVHA, Pwakim, Jacob Choji told me this in Jos, while acknowledging that the incumbent governor can still make decisions and take actions until the governor elect is sworn-in on May 29. He, however states that Lalong should be guided by both moral and legal burden of responsibility, so as not to take actions that contravene the laws guiding the state and the principles of good conscience.

Choji pointed out that power is transient; hence, the outgoing governor must know that the in-coming government also has a burden to conduct a thorough investigation into the actions taken in the past. He further alleged that in the last days of the Lalong administration, there has been a “last minute rush” to recruit people into the public service.

“This move is also followed by a backdated promotion for civil servants that should have been promoted many years ago,” he argued.

He said that information available to him is that the outgoing administration struggled to pay N2.1 billion as wages for January 2023 and N2.8 billion in February of same year without including the over 4,000 workers recruited in the last two months.

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“This has the tendency to create a labour crisis upon assumption of office by the incoming governor. It will be unfortunate if the assertion of analysts is true that the intention of the recruitment and the late hour promotion, is to set up a booby trap for the incoming administration.”

Similarly, the opposition party the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have also alerted the unsuspecting members of the public, of illegal engagements of the outgoing government.

The PDP publicity secretary, John Akans in a statement, disclosed that the outgoing APC administration has now embarked on another plot of employing their families and cronies into government ministries and agencies without recourse to qualification and due process.

“Any employment conducted in the last weeks will not stand and will not enter the state payroll. This is because they were done in contravention of enabling laws of the civil service.

However, Plateau State Head of Service, Engr. Sunday Hyat, when contacted for comments over the alleged massive recruitment into the State Civil Service, said that it is not true that the out-going administration employed over 11,000 people into the state civil service, as is being speculated in some quarters.

According to him, since the inception of the administration of Governor Simon Lalong, he has not conducted any recruitment exercise. The head of service also disclosed that the number of these new recruits was merely 4000 and the act I s meant to re-engineer the civil service.