About 600 staff members of Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti have been sacked between 2016 and 2018.
This is said to be in compliance with the directive of the Governing Council of the University after considering the report of the staff audit carried out by a firm of external auditors commissioned to undertake a general auditing of staff in the university.
Findings in the Report of the Visitation Panel as accepted by the Government White Paper to the university which noted among other things that there was over staffing, redundancy and personnel misalignment in virtually all the sections of the university. It noted that this had astronomically increased the wage bill of the University beyond its capacity to pay.
Addressing journalists in Ado Ekiti, the Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Edward Olanipekun explained that the 600 workers were employed irregularly against university regulations within the period 2016-2018, thereby causing a major personnel disalignment and skyrocketing of the university wage bill by about 100% within two years.
He said the situation was so bad in the university that it was the monthly contributions of members of staff who belong to some Cooperative, Thrift and Credit Societies in the University that were partly and on a monthly basis used by the then university administration to pay the salaries of those that were irregularly employed and who interestingly refused to join any of the Cooperative, Thrifts and Credit Societies.
Olanipekun, a professor, explained that 228 members of staff could not produce evidence of Primary School Leaving Certificate while there were some ghost workers whose names were found on the university pay roll without being on the university nominal role.
“Some members of staff presented falsified birth and educational certificates while some of the members of staff lacked the required basic educational qualification,” he said.
