By Festus Ahon

ASABA—WORRIED by the decision of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State to lay them off on grounds of alleged irregularities that trailed their employment, the newly employed civil servants in the state, yesterday appealed to the governor to rescind his decision to save them and their dependants from economic hardship.

The affected workers, in a statement at the end of their congress, said: “We had since assumed work at our various ministries, departments and agencies where we were deployed to.”

Governor Okowa had last week suspended all those employed between January 1, 2014 and May 30, 2015.

The aggrieved workers, in a statement by Mr Regha Obus, and four others, said: “A greater number of us resigned our appointments in our former organisations to take up the civil service job with the joy of serving our state.

“All the employments by Delta State Civil Service Commission went through due process via application stage, invitation to interview stage and having successfully passed the interview, and offered employment by the Delta State Civil Service Commission between January 1, 2014 and May 31, 2015, and all offers which were subsequently and duly accepted before June 1, 2015, when the suspension was placed on the exercise, are lawful civil servants of Delta State Civil Service.

“In view of the above, the affected civil servants are bonafide staff of the Delta State Civil Service, thus, our newly sworn-in employer who took oath of office on May 29, 2015 after the employments had been duly and lawfully executed, cannot validly discharge civil servants of the employment which has statutory flavour.

“We call on the governor to look into the report of the committee set up by the immediate past Governor, Dr. Emanuel Uduaghan, and make same public for the good of Deltans while culprit of the alleged fraud or corruption allegation against the Civil Service Commission be prosecuted within a reasonable time.”