Umuahia- EDUCATION secretaries in Abia State Education system are alleged to be collecting bribes before offering jobs to applicants.



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They were alleged to be collecting as much as N120,000 to employ teachers on grade level 5 and non- teaching staff on grade level 3, whose salary per month ranges between N10,000 and N15,000.

Some of the education secretaries were said to have exceeded the number of staff authorized by the Ministry of Education for employment, in a bid to make more money.

In Bende local government area, for example, the education authorities allegedly collected N120, 000 from about 180 applicants recruited.

They were alleged to have been mandated to engage 30 teaching and non-teaching staff, but overshot the number to recruit 180 persons, each of who paid N120, 000.

The last set of the employees recruited and given letters of appointment in December last year were alleged not to have been paid salary, despite the huge amount they paid as bribe.

Vanguard investigation revealed that because of the large number of teaching and non-teaching staff recruited, Bende education authorities now pay salaries on first-come-first serve basis, a system that had left many of them those affected receiving no salaries for months.

A staff of one of the schools in the zone, who confirmed paying N120,000 bribe to be employed last December, said she went to Bende last week to collect her salary, only to be told that the money had been exhausted.

It was learnt that though the affected workers were engaged last December, their appointment letters were back-dated to 2008.

A source told Vanguard that the practice had been on in Bende local government area for three years.

According to the source, those recruited between 2007 and 2008 paid between N40, 000 and N80, 000 as bribe before they were employed, while the amount rose to N120,000 last December.

Just last week, Governor Theodore Orji warned senior civil servants, including Permanent Secretaries alleged to be involved in sharp practices, to turn a new leaf or be shown the way out.


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