A retired Permanent Secretary and a respected Elder Statesman in Imo State, Chief Fabian Agba, accused former governor Rochas Okorocha, of destroying Imo Civil Service, by converting the State civil servants loyalty to himself instead of the State as prescribed by the Civil Service Rules and captured in the nation’s constitution while he held sway for 8 years as the State governor.
He also alleged that the current governor Hope Uzodimma’s administration is simply massaging and enterprising on the illegality established by Okorocha instead of revamping it.
The fearless octogenarian Statesman, wondered how a State, like Imo would not have an established institution or a known Establishment charged with the responsibility of management of civil servants salaries and pensioner such that complaints arising from civil servants salaries and pensions.
He regretted the observed situation in the State where civil servants and pensioners with issues of payments are tossed around like football; from Accountant Generals office to Ministry of Finance or Government House yet all these circular movements without solving the real issues.
He also decried the reoccurring trend of gathering civil Servants and pensioners intermittently at different locations including but not limited to Imo International Conference Centre (ICCC) among others in the guise of “searching for the dead (ghost workers) among the living”.
Chief Agba, maintained that governors should learn to distance themselves from the State’s money on the grounds that the constitution of the country and the Civil Service rule designed it that the State’s Accountant-General office should report to the Public Accounts Committee, in the State House of Assembly.
He warned the State governors, to desist from politicizing every aspect of the State’s life especially the civil service. Going down the memory lane, Chief Agba, acknowledged that the clean and neat civil Service bequeathed to Nigeria by the British was running smoothly until the incessant military incursion began to taint the dignity of civil service that civil servants became very conscious of their job security and began to divide loyalty but was still tolerable until Okorocha came on board as governor in 2011-2015 and gradually ruined the civil service.
“Then Uzodinma came and cashed in on the deteriorated situation, and has done nothing better to revamp or restore battered condition. For me there is no civil service in Imo State” Chief Agba Said.
