The ongoing Manpower Audit and Verification Exercise is not meant to witch-hunt any civil servant, but to revive the desired ideals of qualitative productivity in the workforce in Katsina state.
Alhaji Usman Isyaku, the state Head of Civil Service disclosed this in an interview with some journalists in his office in Katsina on Friday.
Isyaku said the civil servants have nothing to be afraid of, as the exercise is meant to identify the actual number of the state workforce and correct various anomalies that have also been detected in the state civil service.
According to him, the exercise after completion, will identify all leakages arising from those not captured by the biometric database like deceased retirees, staff on transfer to other agencies who are still drawing funds from the state lean resources, and many more.
“The state database can only capture retiring officers after their 35 years of service and those that have attained the age of 60 years, but those that changed places of work or are dead, they can not be identified until such exercises are conducted”, he explained.
He said these and some other antics after the verification process would be identified and blocked to give room for the proper training programmes already earmarked to commence for the workforce in the state.
Isyaku maintained that the exercise will also enable the state government to engage all needed professionals to fill available vacancies caused by retirements and other identified reasons to make the state civil service vibrant and productive.
To this end, the state Head of Civil Service disclosed that a meeting has been held with the management of the Institute of Technology and Management in collaboration with the Department of Establishment and Training to design specific training programmes for all cadres of staff.
While noting that a similar exercise was conducted during the past administration in 2017, Alhaji Usman Isyaku said about 20,000 staff are expected to appear before the verification committee that is supposed to complete its assignment in four weeks.