Lagos sacks 35 senior officials over certificate forgery



February 14, 2013 | 12:30 am

News

By OLASUNKANMI AKONI & MONSOOR OLOWOOPEJO

LAGOS—LAGOS State Government has sacked 35 of its civil servants, including senior executive officers, for securing employment into the State Civil Service with forged certificates, even as the appointments of 13 others were terminated for absenteeism.

Other offences of the sacked workers included misappropriation of funds, diversion of government money for personal use, defrauding the public, loss of government’s vehicles and absence from duty without permission.

It will be recalled that last year, the state government dismissed 174 officers of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA, for corruption, overzealousness and others.

Vanguard gathered that those sacked were on grade level 07 to 12.

They include senior traffic officers, traffic superintendents, higher traffic superintendent, traffic officers II, higher statistics officer, senior accountant, senior executive officer, among others.

Most of the affected workers were discovered to have gained employment into the civil service with forged certificates during certificate verification carried out by the government.

The list of the sacked public officers was contained in a journal published by the state government.

It was also gathered that the affected staff had since been issued sacked letters before their names were published by the Office of the Head of Service in the publication.

It was gathered that the affected public servants were made to face the Personnel Management Board, PMB, the disciplinary body of the state government, which recommended their immediate sack.

Head of Service, Adesegun Ogunlewe, had earlier warned that the government would not tolerate acts of indiscipline and corruption among civil servants as government was bent on repositioning the civil service to meet up with the standard befitting of a mega city like Lagos.

Meanwhile, the Lagos State House of Assembly, has directed Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Mrs. Florence Oguntuase, to Implement the house resolution on the payment of salary arrears of the 24 Lagos veterinary doctors from 2003 to 2010.

The house gave the directive following earlier summon and appearance of Oguntuase on the floor of the House to make clarification over the resolution of the House on the salary arrears

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