The monitoring team of the Enugu State Government on “Work Attendance and Productivity” has paid a surprise visit to Ezeagu Local Government Headquarters, Aguobu-Owa to discover that most of the staff were absent from duty.
The unscheduled visit followed a viral video, on the social media, showing the local government headquarters deserted on Friday, April 5, contrary to the directive by the State Governor, Peter Mbah that civil servants in the state must become productive and work five days in a week.
The discovery by the visiting team confirmed the voice-over in the viral video which narrated that no single staff was found on duty on that fateful day, a development that prompted the unscheduled visit to the council area.
The Mbah Administration is currently undertaking a staff audit of local government councils having discovered that many of the people on the payroll, who also transit to the state’s pension payroll, do not come to work at all, while many others live outside the state and the country and still draw salaries and other benefits from the local government system.
The team which was received by the Chief Executive Officer in charge of Administration at the council, Mrs. Lorita Akwuchie undertook a tour of all the offices and departments in the council headquarters.
The visiting team which includes the Head of Service, Kenneth Ugwu; Principal Secretary to the Governor, Ken Chukwuegbo; Chairman, Enugu State Chapter of the Trade Union Congress, Ben Asogwa and the Chairman, Joint Public Service Negotiating Council, Ezekiel Omeh, among others, met only 36 out of the over 200 council workers at their duty post.
The team vowed that the acts of negligence and absence from duty without permission by the council workers would not go unpunished reminding civil servants across the state that productivity remained the watchword of Governor Peter Mbah’s Administration
The Head of Service, Mr. Ugwu, who led the Monitoring Team directed that queries be issued to all the council workers who were not found on duty insisting that workers must not only come to work, but must be assigned responsibilities which they must fulfil with proof.
Ugwu said that is the only way the economy of the state can be grown from $4.4bn to $30bn insiting that every segment of the society and arm of government must contribute its quota for that growth to happen.