NCSU Boss Lauds Rivers Biometrics …Assures Genuine Workers Of Job Security

Even as the biometric exercise
organised by the Rivers State Government, to ascertain the actual number of civil servants in the state, has come to an end, the state Chairman of the Nigeria Civil Service Union (NCSU), Comrade O.T. Lilly-West, has commended Governor Nyesom Wike for initiating the exercise.
Lilly-West, who made the commendation in an interview in Port Harcourt after the union rose from its State Administrative Council meeting also thanked the governor for paying, within the week, the three months salary arrears of civil servants captured by the biometric exercise, stressing that the gesture had proved that he was a man of his words.
He said, the NCSU from the onset, was fully in support of the exercise since the state government cannot afford to continue to fritter away scarce resources on ghost workers, particularly now that the present administration actually needs funds to carry out development projects and fully develop the state.
While expressing delight that the biometric exercise was a huge success, since it had gone a long way to bring down the wage bill of the state, the NCSU boss contended that the purported over 7,000 ghost workers detected through the exercise might not be the true position.
To this end, he assured civil servants in the state not to panic, as none of them, as long as they are genuine would be flushed out of the civil service.
According to him, the union was going to protect all genuine civil servants, as none of them would suffer for the sins of some fraudulent individuals.
He further indicated that the union would also ensure that all genuine civil servants, especially those who have not been captured are captured.
“I want to assure genuine civil servants that if you are a genuine civil servants, nobody will take you out of work except you are not genuine. Genuine civil servants must not suffer for what other people have done. And so labour leaders, and as the chairman of NCSU, the biggest union in Africa, we will protect genuine civil servants”, he said.
The NCSU boss also stressed the need for those behind the bloated wage bill of the state to be punished, saying, “if you have defrauded the government, you should face the law”.
Lilly-West further assured civil servants in the state that the government would begin the payment of their increments and promotion arrears as soon as the entire biometric process was completed, and thanked Governor Wike for keeping faith with the workers.

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