The Chairman of the commission, Darlington Eyo, said this during an interactive session with newsmen in Calabar

Eyo noted that the commission inherited a depleted local government staff of about 9000, adding that with the 4000 personnel already recruited, efforts were still ongoing to fill the remaining vacant spaces.

He said that the mass recruitment approved by Gov. Bassey Otu under his “People First Mantra” was the first in 37 years.

“The councils we met had a depleted workforce, so the governor deemed it necessary that we fill the vacancies and also ensure a sustainable means of livelihood for the people.

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“In actual fact, we were supposed to meet about 12,000 or 13,000 staff, but what we met was about 3000, so we approached the governor on this, and he saw reason for the recruitment of more hands to fulfill the obligations of the local government areas.

The chairman also debunked the allegations of employment buying, saying he isn’t aware of such activity going on in the commission.

According to him, I won’t rule out the possibility that some individuals outside the commission might be trying to undermine it or act as its agents.

“The good thing however is that anyone who patronise such a person will be fished out as we have a system in place that will expose them.”

Eyo added that the local government service commission uncovered 800 ghost workers during the audit of the staff payroll.

Source: Punch