By Daniel Tyokua
Crisis is brewing in the FCT Area Councils Audit Secretariat over alleged imposition of Auditor General.
Checks in the Secretariat last Friday, showed that the workers are aggrieved with the past FCT Ministers and the Permanent Secretaries who have always neglected the pioneer staff in the appointment of Auditor General.
The AUTHORITY gathered that the office, which has been existing since creation in 1992, has qualified Chartered Accountants but FCTA, rather than selecting an Auditor General from among them, has always preferred people from outside the system to head them.
Some of the pioneer staff, who don’t want their names mentioned, have spent about 30years in the system and also understand the workings, expressed displeasure that FCT Administration have continue to waste human resources, it spent tax payers funds to train.
They wondered why the administration will keep taking decisions that are counterproductive and also in variance with the reforms which the Head of Service of the Federation is implementing.
A source revealed that the present acting Auditor General for FCT Area Councils, who is a senior staff of the office, has just one year to retire.
It was gathered that a standard civil service rule stipulates that whoever that should be appointed as the Auditor General of the office, must have a minimum of 4 years to retirement.
An insider disclosed that the staff have become aggrieved over speculation that the FCTA Permanent Secretary was planning to nominate an outsider and impose on them as Auditor General.
Further findings revealed that should FCTA decide to impose another person from outside the system to head the office, the senior staff will sabotage work progress of the office.
On implication of the action, a public service expert, Dr Dickson Ezecheta, said it was, “miscalculated investment to spend public funds to train workers on a particular job line, and abandon them when there is need to use them”
Ezecheta advised the Minister of FCT and the Permanent Secretary to consider qualified Chartered Accountants who have grown in the agency and also understand the inner workings of it, as the next Auditor General.
