Odahiekwu Ogunde, Yenagoa
Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, has set up a committee to review workers in the civil service, particularly those employed in the twilight of the immediate past administration of governor Seriake Dickson.
Chairman, Civil Service Commission, Dr Peter Singabele, however, allayed fears of retrenchment of civil servants by the present administration, at a press conference in Yenagoa on Wednesday.
He pointed out that only those who were recently engaged in the civil service through the backdoor had everything to be afraid of.
Singabele said the state government had uncovered a syndicate that specialised in forging the signatures of ex-governor Seriake Dickson and that of the Permanent Secretary of the Civil Service Commission to give applicants appointment letters for a fee.
He said already two employees of the commission had been fingered in the employment scam and had been handed over to a disciplinary panel for further investigation.
He added that investigation was ongoing to identify some staff of the state Treasury working with the syndicate.
Singabele said, “We want to let all civil servants know that we are currently reviewing the appointments letters of most of those who were engaged newly and in particular those whose names are in the payroll in the Treasury but it has been discovered that their names are not in the genuine employment list. Those are ones we are checking.
“At the end of our review exercise, all those with genuine employment letters have no cause to worry as they will certainly remain in the civil service, but if you are unable to prove to us that you have a genuine employment letter certainly we have nothing to do about that.”