Mr Samson Mafuyai, President of the Plateau State Chapter of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), has rejected a recent declaration by Gov. Jonah Jang that the state’s Local Government system is “rotten’’.
“Such sweeping statements are usually made by top government officials who have hidden intentions and sinister motives,’’ Mafuyai told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos on Monday.
Mafuyai was reacting to the governor's claims that the Local Government Administration was stinking of fraud.
“I don’t agree with what the governor has said about the Local Government system in the state. It is simply not true,” Mafuyai declared.
Said Mafuyai: “even if 99 per cent of the workforce are rotten, the remaining one per cent can still be counted for something. I don’t subscribe to this issue of saying that the system is completely corrupt. Unfortunately, that is what keeps coming up.
“It is a recurring decimal, everyday you keep hearing that the system is rotten, let us cleanse the system then.
“If the system is cleansed, it will be to the benefit of all of us, especially Local Government staffers because if you know there are some leakages, plug the loopholes. ’’
Mafuyai declared, however, that the union would never condone corruption in any form.
“If there is rot anywhere, the union will never support it. We do not support illegalities. If government feels there is a lot of rot, it is good to cleanse the system.
“But while you are cleansing the system, you must be very sincere on how you go about it.
“You know, sometimes people have some pre-conceived ideas about the system; they always believe that good cannot come out of the system, I don’t agree with that. ”
The NULGE president also rejected claims on the “ghost workers” syndrome, pointing out that it was not difficult to detect the ghost workers.
Mafuyai frowned at the moves to redeploy Local Government staff to their home Local Government Areas on “flimsy excuses’’ of being corrupt, saying that the move was a ploy to totally hand over authority of the Local Governments to political heads so as to ensure election victories.
“Local Governments have laws and edicts, their function cannot be devolved to political heads. The move is a witch-hunt in disguise and workers must reject it,” he said.
NAN recalls that Jang at the inauguration of outside broadcasting vans for the Plateau State Radio Television Corporation? lamented endemic corruption in the state’s civil service and the Local Governments.
Jang, while decrying the corruption in the system, had said that the state would deploy the bio-metric system in the Local Governments immediately after doing so in the state's Civil Service.
To check cases of corruption, particularly ghost workers, Jang had also announced that all Local Government staff would be re-deployed to their councils of origin before the next Local Government polls.
“Henceforth, every indigene will work in his or her Local Government Area so that if they mess their people up, the people will deal with them there rather than mess up other Local Governments,’’ Jang stated.
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