Osun civil servants reject staff audit exercise, walk out from venue

By Deborah Oladejo, Osogbo

Civil servants in Osun State on Thursday walked out of the ongoing staff audit ordered by Governor Ademola Adeleke over qdisagreement with the consultant on the mode of the auditing and other issues.

The angry workers said they were no longer interested in the exercise.

The staff audit is being carried out by a consulting firm, Saibot Consulting.

The verification exercise had commenced few days ago at the Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding, Osogbo.

Workers of the Hospitals Management Board were expected to appear before the auditing consultant firm on Thursday.

Few minutes after the workers had converged at the venue for the exercise, it was gathered that some of them became uncomfortable with the process and disagreed with the consultant on the mode and other logistics involved in the auditing.

The angry workers were said to have parked their academic credentials and stormed out of the venue.

The organised labour in the state had earlier kicked against the exercise, alleging that they were not adequately consulted.

However, the state government, assured that the exercise was not a witchhunt but an effort to reposition the state civil service to be one of the best in the country.

The Academic and Non-Academic Staff of Osun State-owned tertiary institutions on the other hand had called on the state government to decentralise the exercise.

The unions threatened to embark on industrial action if the consulting firm fails to put the concern they had raised into consideration.

ASUP, COEASU, NASU, SSANIP of Osun State Polytechnic, Iree, Osun State College of Technology, Esa-Oke and Osun State College of Education, Ila-Orangun, respectively, said there was the need for an urgent review of the staff audit.

Chairman of the Academy Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Fatai Afolabi, urged the governor to direct the consulting firm on the need to decentralise the exercise.

Afolabi, who spoke on behalf of other union leaders  said that the centralisation of the audit exercise in Osogbo will add more burden on workers at a time people were battling with the hardship occasioned by fuel subsidy removal.

He urged the state government to direct the consultant to move round the various institutions.

Fatai noted that the staff auditing was not the first in the history of the state, saying the exercise had been done by previous administrations.