Fayose Pardons Ekiti Civil Servants

The 31 employees of the Ekiti State civil service, who resumed late to their duty post on Monday, August 31, 2015, have been pardoned by the state governor, Ayodele Fayose.

On Monday, the governor was at the state secretariat in Akure before 8am, the official resumption time, but some of the workers were not at work and when the late comers sensed their jobs were at risk, they started begging; kneeling and prostrating.

Fayose received wild criticisms for this, but on Wednesday, the governor announced that he has forgiven the workers and urged them to take their jobs serious.

The governor, during a meeting with public servants in Ado Ekiti, said, “I am begging workers to get to work on time. If we are paying salaries on time, then civil servants must also reciprocate by coming to work on time.”

He also disclosed his intention to take the bailout loan by the Federal Government, but wants sincere views of the workers before embarking on such.

He urged residents of the state to pay their taxes to improve the state’s Internally Generated Revenue, IGR.

“Also, people must be ready to pay rates, taxes and levies. If civil servants are paying taxes, others should pay as well. Our IGR must improve,” he said.

“They say they are restructuring N18.8 billion of our commercial loans and with the 9 per cent interest, by the time the money is repaid in 20 years, we would have paid an extra N36billion as interest. That means the N18 billion would have become N56 billion.

“I am addressing you on the issue so that before I commit the state to taking the loan, I have to get your permission. The main consequence of the bailout is that it is from same monthly allocation from the federal that we will accommodate servicing the N25 billion bond we inherited from the previous administration.

“When allocation comes and they are deducting from source, do not say I did not tell you. I set up a technical committee to see to how we disburse monthly allocations coming to the state. The committee has members drawn from labour unions, tertiary institutions among others. We do this to allow for transparency in the system,” the governor explained.