Absentee civil servants and political appointees in Zamfara risk losing their pay, Governor Bello Matawalle has warned.

The governor already directed the Ministry of Finance to withhold staff salaries until respective commissioners and permanent secretaries endorsed the number of staff who report to work regularly.

The governor stated this in a statement by his media aide Zailani Bappa on Tuesday.

Mr Matawalle observed that the civil service was full of anomalies, bloated with absentee staff. He admonished civil servants to adhere to their work ethics or have their salaries stopped.

He also noted that political appointees were not contributing to efforts at addressing security challenges in the state.

“I wonder how a political appointee will shun his people at the grassroots by being incommunicado while bandits have informants all around and are having the upper hand against us,” lamented the governor. “I employed you to have your telephones accessible to all your people so that we can effectively monitor what is happening at the grassroots as it happens or even before it happens.”

He urged his political appointees to “listen to the people at the grassroots at all times, especially on issues that border on security.”

(NAN)