Rivers Perm Secs, Directors In Salary Scandal …As RSG Saves N2bn From Biometrics

More sordid facts are beginning to emerge even as the on going data capture and biometrics of civil servants by the Rivers State Government enters its third month.
The Tide investigations have revealed that more permanent secretaries and directors in the various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) are being caught pants down.
Inside sources in the ICT Department in charge of the exercise reliably told The Tide that one Permanent Secretary was caught less than two weeks ago with nine Bank Verification Accounts (BVN).
One of the sources said, “We don’t know how long this has been, but he has been asked to go and refund those salaries he has been receiving since Governor Nyesom Wike resumed office on May 29th, 2015.”
Another top civil servant in one of the state-owned media houses was also caught taking salaries from two pay points, one of the sources reliably told The Tide.
The Tide recalls that earlier, the state Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, had revealed that some civil servants receive salaries from two to three ministries as the payroll in the former administration rose to almost N9billion.
About two weeks ago, the governor also revealed how names of dead and retired staff were used, especially in some tertiary institutions to bloat the state’s payroll.
Wike warned that those caught would be prosecuted, as he hinted that another forensic data capture would be done to ascertain the real staff strength of the government.
The Tide gathered that the Rivers State Government has so far saved about N2billion through the highly successful biometric capture of civil servants in the state.
The state Commissioner for Finance, Dr Fred Kpakol, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen last week, during which he confirmed that no civil servant who has successfully gone through the biometric data capture exercise is owed salary by the government.