7th November, 2024
By Jethro Ibileke
The Edo State Government and the transition committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are engaged in war of words over alleged conversion of political appointees to civil servants by the outgoing Governor Mr. Godwin Obaseki.
A member of the Committee, Prince Kassim Afegbua, in a statement on Wednesday, titled ‘Governor Obaseki’s last deceit’, alleged that the Governor is presently converting his Senior Special Assistants (SSA) and Special Assistants (SA) into full time civil service staff.
The statement said:
“It has come to our notice that Governor Obaseki is presently converting his Senior Special Assistants (SSA) and Special Assistants (SA) into full time civil service staff.
“He added 186 of such appointees in September this year to the already bloated number of aides around him and has just commenced the process of absorbing another 152 aides to compound the problem.
“The interview is presently ongoing as part of effort to overburden the incoming administration with huge recurrent expenditure, aware that the state is already bugged down by huge debts burden.”
Afegbua further alleged that Governor Obaseki, for eight years refused to recruit civil servants to fill up vacant positions and also refused to set up the Civil Service Commission until two weeks ago, in the twilight of his failed administration.
“We are alerting the public to be aware of Governor Obaseki’s deliberate engagement to stifle the resources of the state and pass on huge salaries and overhead to the incoming administration.
“This is not only a wicked act but a huge disservice to the incoming administration of Senator Monday Okpebholo,” Afegbua stated.
Responding to the allegation, In a statement, Special Adviser on Media Projects, Crusoe Osage, knocked APC for insinuating that the government was overburdening government by employing more workers in recent weeks.
Osagie noted that the Obaseki-led administration employed workers to serve best interest of the state.
According to him, the State Government has said that employment into the Edo State Public Service since the outset of the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration has focused on serving the people.
“We are unfortunately seeing a disturbing trend from the APC even before they assume government position.
“They have started making spurious claims that the state is overburdened by debt and are now threatening that they will sack workers.
“In his recent statement, Kassim Afegbua, a member of the transition committee threatened that they are ready to cut down the number of workers engaged in Edo State because they need more money to themselves. This is evidently a sign of the level of thinking in the APC, where all they care about is what gets into their pocket and not what is best for Edo State.”
Osagie added that the comments about the government employing workers was misguided noting that Government started engaging new workers across various spectrum of governance over 6 years ago, a fact that can be confirmed by civil servants in the State.
“So it is disingenuous to start claiming at this last minute that the government is now just only employing new workers to set traps for the new government,” he said.
