By our reporter
Two and half months after Presidential and Gubernatorial elections, the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCS) is yet to fully pay officers who participated in elections duty, our investigation has revealed.
Our investigation also revealed that the NCS only selectively paid few officers, despite huge amount budgeted.
Till today, our findings revealed that some officers who fully participated were not asked to submit their account details for payment.
Our reporter in Jos observed that
states affected included; Jos, Taraba, Gombe, Bauchi, Adamawa and many others.
Sources said most of the officers who collected their claims are those in Abuja and few in other states.
This medium observed that, the money budgeted for NCS from the rank of inspector is N139.000, but even with the release of the funds to the service, only selected few were paid.
Our reporter added that while some were paid the full amount, others only got half of the money.
“It is a very serious issue. As we speak, no money has been paid to us. I have seen some who collected their money but I am yet to get mine despite the fact that we worked together.
“I am very angry with this selective payment of officers despite risking our lives during the elections. This is a crime against those of us who gave our best”, said NCS staff in Jos.
Another staff from Yobe told our reporter on phone that they don’t have any hope of getting the money because of the high level of corruption in the system. “The current boss of the service is not a man of integrity and we are not expecting anything despite our sacrifices.
“As it stands, our hope is in God. We want the president to
intervene and press on the high authority to pay us our money.”
“This is not the first time that we are seeing this kind of high level corruption. Our service is the worst. We do not get allowances and other benefits because those in-charge usually hijack what is due to us, said another staff from Yola.
He added that the high command only pays attention to those who have connections in the service.
Another officer told our reporter that some of them did not even submit their account details.
He said the service handpicked people for payment.
While reacting to the report, the Spokesperson of the service, Umar Abubakar, said about 80% of the staff have been paid.
He said those complaining are officers who have issues with their accounts, saying the service is working towards rectifying the challenges.
He said the Commandant General of the service is very passionate and will address all challenges before the end of this month.
He also said all officers who participated in the election were captured for payment.
But after his response, our reporter went further to verify whether staff had issues with their accounts and were asked to effect corrections, but those spoken to in most of the states said the spokesperson was just playing the Ostrich to keep his job.
They said no one contacted them and no one gave them any reason for the delay.
However, this medium will swing to action at the end of this month to update members of the public on whether the service complete the payment within the stipulated time as claimed by the spokesperson or not.
