By Dayo Johnson

Akure—Ondo state government yesterday expressed concern over the dwindling allocation to the state from the Federation Account.

Addressing newsmen in Akure to mark this year’s Public Service Day celebration, Head of Service, HoS, Toyin Akinkuotu, described it as worrisome.

Akinkuotu said the state received on monthly basis an average of N5 billion and paid about N4 billion as salaries to workers in the state, noting that N6 billion was allocated to the state before the recent development.

The HoS however explained that despite the worrisome development, the state was not owing workers salaries as the case in many states.

According to him, 7847 public servants would benefit from promotion exercise this year while the state was not owing any arrears of staff promotion to date.

Also, N514 million was provided by government as vehicle loan to 1131 workers this year.

On the controversial staff verification exercise, the HoS said 1484 public servant found guilty had been recalled; explaining that those reinstated were found to have falsified their birth records during the exercise.

According to him, the exercise was not meant to witch-hunt, downsize or retrench workers, but to evolve a proper database and create a new value system for effective human resource management.

Akinkuotu said those reinstated admitted to the offences but the state governor, Olusegun Mimiko ordered that they should be pardoned, especially those supposed to still be in service due to the number of years they still have to spend.

On the contributory pension, he said a pension commission would soon be inaugurated to perfect the implementation of the policy and assured workers that their contribution would be safe, adding that government would contribute 12.5 percent as against workers contribution of 7.5 percent.