Imagine one BVN secretly pocketing multiple salaries while real teachers wait months for pay. Cross River’s had enough - and the unions are on board.

Unions are backing the Cross River State Government’s push to clean up its wage bill, as reported by cbinews.tv. Both the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, and the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, say they’re fully behind the ongoing payroll verification aimed at axing over 2,000 suspected ghost workers off the local government system.

The whole idea? Sanitize the payroll, fix the dodgy bits, and make sure only real, actual humans get paid. Pretty reasonable, right?

What the unions are saying

Cross River NUT Chairman, Comrade Greg Olayi, told cbinews.tv that they’ve been nudging teachers to hand in payslips, BVN details, and whatever else the verification needs. But here’s the snag: some teachers who did *everything* right still can’t access their salaries. Olayi’s message to government is simple - sort it out so genuine workers don’t get caught in the crossfire.

He’s also not thrilled about the delays with teachers’ promotions. Some verified promotions are still gathering dust, and he wants those records cleared, pronto. This isn’t the first time he’s raised the alarm - he recently led a protest over salaries allegedly unpaid since November last year.

NULGE President, Comrade Leko Otabe, agrees the cleanup is long overdue. According to him, the exercise will help scrap unauthorised entries and the mess that’s been complicating local government salary payments. But he’s calling for better teamwork between government and labour - more talking, fewer disputes dragging on.

Govt’s side of the story

Elder Bassey Abam Eko, the Auditor-General for Local Governments, explained to cbinews.tv why some promotions were put on ice. Basically, they need time to comb through the records properly and stop any funny business. They’ve asked for detailed docs to work out the real cost of promotions and make sure every kobo is backed by receipts.

At a chat with labour leaders and journos in Calabar, Commissioner for Local Government Affairs, Chief Victor-Felix Idem, didn’t mince words. The probe found some wild stuff: invalid BVNs, duplicated records, and cases where *one* BVN was linked to multiple salary payments. Yes, you read that right.

“We have discovered over 2,000 invalid and questionable records in the payroll system. In some cases, one BVN was being used to collect salaries meant for several individuals,” Idem told cbinews.tv. “We cannot allow such practices to continue if we truly want to protect public funds and ensure genuine workers are paid.”

Preliminary findings point to over 2,000 ghost workers, with a lot of the dodgy records traced back to the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB. Idem also shut down claims that teachers are getting half salaries, insisting the verification is about protecting public funds and paying legit staff on time.

Source: cbinews.tv

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