The Cross River State Government has dismissed allegations that teachers are being paid half salaries, revealing that an ongoing payroll verification exercise has uncovered more than 2,000 questionable records, including invalid Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs), duplicate entries and suspected ghost workers, particularly within the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).
The Commissioner for Local Government Affairs, Chief Victor-Felix Idem, made the disclosure during an interactive session with labour leaders and journalists in Calabar, convened in the wake of a recent protest by members of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) over salary-related concerns.
According to Idem, the exercise was initiated to restore integrity to the local government payroll system and ensure that public funds are paid only to legitimate workers. He said investigations uncovered cases in which a single BVN was allegedly linked to multiple salary payments, a development he described as a serious threat to the state’s wage administration process.
“We have discovered over 2,000 invalid and questionable records in the payroll system. In some cases, one BVN was being used to collect salaries meant for several individuals. We cannot allow such practices to continue if we truly want to protect public funds and ensure genuine workers are paid,” the commissioner said.
He explained that the largest concentration of irregularities was discovered within the payroll structure of SUBEB, where thousands of records are currently being scrutinized as part of the verification exercise.
Idem dismissed claims that government was paying workers half salaries, insisting that the Ministry of Local Government Affairs neither processes nor disburses salaries. “This ministry does not pay salaries. We only upload the payroll. The local government councils are responsible for salary payments. Anybody alleging half-salary payments should provide names, payslips and evidence so that we can investigate the matter,” he stated.
The commissioner assured that workers whose salaries were suspended due to BVN-related discrepancies would be reinstated once they submitted authentic BVNs obtained directly from their banks. He added that labour leaders had been granted access to verification records and invited to identify any inaccuracies in the government’s findings.
Responding, the Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Cross River State Branch, Comrade Greg Olayi, said the union’s intervention was prompted by concerns over teachers who had experienced salary disruptions since the verification exercise commenced.
While acknowledging government’s efforts to sanitize the payroll system, Olayi maintained that some teachers who complied with verification requirements were yet to have their salary issues resolved. He also expressed concern over delays in the implementation of promotions and salary adjustments for some teachers.
Also speaking, the President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Cross River State Chapter, Comrade Leko Otabe, backed the payroll cleanup exercise, describing it as necessary to eliminate fraudulent entries, unauthorized vendors and other irregularities that had long affected salary administration.
Otabe, however, urged government to institutionalize regular engagement with labour unions, arguing that workers’ representatives are often best placed to verify staff records and help resolve payroll disputes before they escalate.
On the controversy surrounding promotions, the Auditor-General for Local Government, Cross River State, Elder Bassey Abam Eko, explained that the temporary suspension of some promotion implementations was intended to allow government reconcile records, determine financial implications and prevent possible abuses of the process.