Gov. Ademola Adeleke of Osun has commenced staff audit across the public service with a plan to fill existing vacancies within the education, health and other sub-sectors in the state.

This is contained in a statement by Olawale Rasheed, the spokesperson for the governor, on Saturday in Osogbo.

The statement said the exercise started with the biometric capture of the governor, his deputy and the Speaker of the House of Assembly at the governor’s office on Friday.

It said that data capturing was preceded by a closed-door meeting with the state labour leaders, where processes and procedures were concluded to ensure the protection and fulfillment of the interest of all stakeholders.

The statement said that the governor assured that the exercise was not a witch-hunt, but to strengthen the capacity of the state government to satisfy the needs of the workers, members of the public and the state leadership.

“I want to assure workers and other stakeholders that the staff audit is not a witch-hunt.

“Our administration has workers’ welfare as number one on our governance agenda. So, we will not take any action that will negatively affect formal and informal workers.

“The audit is to achieve several goals namely; cleaning up the payroll system, validating the actual number of state workforce and establishing areas of vacancies across various sectors of the public service.

“We need to authenticate the data of our workforce. We also need to confirm existing vacancies within the public service.

“I have earlier issued a directive for the collation of vacancies for teachers and health workers. The compilation is almost completed. The outcome will then provide what we call data-driven management of our public service.

“We are ascertaining the number of teachers we need in our schools. Our team is checking out the number of science, english, mathematics, social science and other teachers, as well as which schools need what type of teachers.

“I assure the public that we are aware of the existing vacancies in our schools and health facilities.

“The audit report will provide a strong foundation for the recruitment of new teachers and health workers, which our administration will embark upon after the ongoing exercise,” the governor said.

(NAN)