By Festus Ahon

ASABA—THE Congress of Newly Employed Civil Servants in Delta State, weekend, demanded a holistic probe into the state civil service with a view to flushing out corrupt management staff and ghost workers from the system and thereby open employment opportunities for Deltans.

The congress, in a statement by its Chairman, Mr Regha Obukohwo, urged the state governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okow, to re-consider his decision and reverse the suspension placed on their employment. He lamented that many of them resigned their previous jobs to pick up the civil service job with the intention of serving their state.

Denying insinuation that the state was broke and could not pay its workers, the aggrieved suspended workers, said: “We request the Delta State Accountant General and Head of Service to provide answers to high numbers of ghost workers under their watch and account for the internally generated revenue, IGR, of Delta State, which is over N7 billion monthly.

He said: “The claim that of the N12 billion allocation for the month of May 2015  by Delta State Government officials that over N5 billion was spent as salary without disclosing the state’s IGR which is estimated at N7 billion while government officials are also claiming that they are using N5.2 billion to service its debt profile cannot be correct.

“We urge Governor Okowa to direct Heckrbella Limited, the firm handling the N1.4 billion  Delta State Biometric Identification Payroll Automation Time and Attendance System, BIPATAS, project to release its report on the ministries, departments and agencies they have already concluded Biometric report. Heckrbella is a firm contracted to fish out ghost workers from the Delta State Civil Service.”

He further alleged: “That Governor Okowa was wrongly advised by the Accountant General and others that Delta State is bankrupt and could not afford to pay the newly employed civil servants.”