Plateau govt decries falsification of age, documents alteration by civil servants

Out of the 13,978 staff verified, 709 either falsified or altered their age, while 673 were wrongly placed, promoted, or converted.

News Agency of Nigeria • January 21, 2022

Simon Lalong [Photo credit: Punch Newspaper]

The government of Plateau has expressed concerns about what it describes as the massive falsification of documents by civil servants in the state.

The committee on Staff Audit and Verification of Civil Servants in the state disclosed that out of the 13,978 staff verified, 709 either falsified or altered their age, while 673 were wrongly placed, promoted, or converted.

The chairman of the committee, John Gobak, made the disclosure while presenting its report to Governor Simon Lalong on Friday at Government House Jos.

Mr Gobak said that 14,418 officers were said to be in the service whereas only 13,978 were authenticated, adding that 66 were supposed to retire prior to the inauguration of the committee.

“Some Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) surprisingly grant approval to their staff to change their date of birth years after being in service.

“Some staff were still being paid salaries months after they had disengaged from the service either by death, retirement, transfer, or secondment.

“This is due to failure to timely raise variation orders in that regard or collusion to circumvent the system and or outright acts of misdemeanors,” he said.

The chairman, among other recommendations, said that the salary automation unit should have a tripartite supervisory linkage among the offices of the Head of Civil Service, State Auditor-General, and the Accountant-General.

“All employments, placements, conversions, advancements done against the provisions of the schemes of service and other extant circulars as captured in our main report be withdrawn,” he added.

Responding, the governor warned affected civil servants against deploying “political connections” to stall implementing recommendations of the report, saying the standing committee on white paper has been directed to immediately take action.

The 18-member committee was inaugurated by the state government on April 20, 2021, to address some of the challenges obstructing service delivery, professionalism, accountability and transparency in the state

(NAN)

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