Akwa Ibom State Government has said it will recover all the salaries and allowances paid to persons who falsified their ages in order to stay long in service.
The Head of Service, Akwa Ibom State, Mrs. Cecilia Udoessien, said this in Uyo on Friday at a one day sensitisation seminar on public service and personnel matters, organised by the Department of Establishments.
She expressed dismay at a situation where officers kept on falsifying their ages, decrying a situation where one person has three or more dates of birth in his or her files.
She explained that the information each individual civil servant gave at the point of entering the service had always been carefully kept in the confidential personal file, which had always been in the custody of the Department of Establishment.
She said, "Government is aware of the shameful act perpetrated by some of its officers.
"If you over stay in service and keep collecting salaries and other allowances, at the time you finally say you are ready to retire, government will recover to the last kobo, the amount you collected during those illegal years you have over-stayed. "
Represented by the Permanent Secretary in her office, Mrs. Eno Offiong, Udoessien assured the state civil servants that hard times awaited those who might be caught in such acts.
She, however, said that age falsification would be a thing of the past as government has embarked on computerisation of all its personnel records to check the excesses.
In his goodwill message, the state Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress, Mr. Uyime Usoro, commended the efforts of the department for conducting the seminar.
Usoro advised workers to always maintain good records with the establishment department for easy and timely processing of their retirement benefit.
The Punch
Age falsification is something Africa is really battling with cos it happens mostly here and it's very bad. I hope that changes....