The Imo state government issued a warning to BudgIT on Tuesday regarding a report that it claimed was false and deceptive and claimed that Imo was one of the states that was behind on employee salaries.
In response to the report from BudgIT, the state commissioner for finance, Doris Uzoka-Anite, told reporters in Owerri.
The commissioner maintained that the administration was shocked by the news at a time when Imo employees were getting paid on time and the government had been making timely salary payments. However, they urged BudgIT to confirm their information before going public.
According to the government, “Recent report by BudgIT alleging that Imo is one of the state governments owing salaries of between “6 months and above. The BudgIT report, released recently and entitled: “2022 Nigerian Sub-National Salary Survey as of July 31st, 2022”, categorized Imo under the “red colour” of its mapping, a report which is “untrue and grossly misleading. The survey, which BudgIT claims is the result of its field research, is not only very misleading but also an embarrassment to the Government.
“We demand an immediate retraction of this publication and request for an unreserved apology from the organisation as the only way to correct the obvious error and put the records straight. Many issues had always surrounded the payment of salaries in Imo state until the arrival of His Excellency, the Executive Governor, Sen. Hope Uzodimma, under whose eagle eyes, a verification exercise was conducted and many ghost workers, identified.
“The Civil Service System in Imo State has been successfully rejigged, with a backlog of owed emoluments cleared, and multiple payments to fraudulent workers halted. Today, Imo workers get their salaries as and at when due. Any who complaints about unpaid salaries today must be investigated as the complainant is either a ghost worker or an unrepentant beneficiary of the rot in the system that saw many workers receive salaries from different offices at the same time, a situation which has been tackled assiduously.
“The Government, therefore, wonders where BudgIT got its false facts from to the extent of publishing it and misleading the public.”
“Government wishes to caution BudgIT to always cross-check its facts and conduct “thorough research” to avoid misleading the public, embarrassing the Government, and bringing itself into disrepute.
“One wonders where such unconfirmed report could spring from, because Imo workers got a 13th-month salary bonus in December 2021, with other juicy gifts, as an expression of the State Government’s commitment to the overall welfare of our workers,” govt said.