A total of 17,710 workers in 87 local authorities have been receiving less than a third of their net salaries, some of them ended empty handed due to loans advanced to them by financial institutions, the Controller and Auditor General (CAG), has revealed.
Mr Ludovick Utouh
This is against Public Service Regulations which require that deductions should not be more than a third of net salary of a respective employee.
“It was revealed during the audit that some employees give out their ATM (debit cards) as guarantee while acquiring loans and eventually end up earning nothing at the end of the month,” Mr Ludovick Utouh said.
He was worried that such a trend could tempt the workers to look for alternative and sometimes unlawful means of income to make ends meet. “As indicated in my past audits, some workers in district councils are having their salaries deducted by over two third due to heavy indebtedness and this affects their performance,” Mr Utouh said.
He made the remarks while briefing journalists on the annual general report on financial statements of local authorities for the financial year that ended June 30, 2012. “Managements in local authorities should educate their workers on the risks of excessive loans and ensure that the amount to be given to workers as loans is controlled by accounting officers so that they do not exceed the required amount,” he advised.
The issue of ghost salaries to workers in the councils was also reported by the CAG though he said the trend was declining compared to the past. “I recommend that the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for regional authorities and local governments should take appropriate action against officials found to be engaging the malpractice,” Mr Utouh said.
Speaking at the same occasion, the Chairman of the Local Authorities Accounts Committee (LAAC), Mr Rajab Mbarouk Mohammed (Ole-CUF), said his committee would ensure that it takes to task all local authorities found to be engaged in malpractices.
No comments:
Post a Comment