Delta state Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, yesterday signed into law the Delta state Independent National Electoral Commission (DSIEC) Bill.
Speaker of the House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, accompanied by his Deputy, Rt. Hon. Friday Osanebi, Clerk of the House, Mrs. Lyna Ochulor, and other Principal officers of the legislature had presented the bill with two other bills, the Local Government Amendment Bill (2017) and the Administration of Criminal Justice Bill (2016) to the governor for assent at Government House, Asaba.
He said “the signing into law of the DSIEC Bill 2017 is very important at this point in time, the law will strengthen the activities of the Delta state Independent Electoral Commission and I believe that with this action, members of the Commission will be appointed to take office for the smooth conduct of the local government elections.”
The governor said efforts are on to ensure that only genuine workers earn salaries and called on the unions in the local government councils to support the ongoing biometric exercise to weed out ghost workers from the system.
“We will continue to support the local government councils for them to pay salaries; allocation to local government councils is very low which has made some of them to find it difficult to pay salaries. There are councils that are not owing salaries because their wage bill is low, I am aware that some councils have paid salaries up to date and we are working hard to ensure that only those who work are paid as there are many ghost workers,” he said.
The governor stressed that the essence of biometrics system introduced in the local government councils is to ensure that those who are fraudulently receiving salaries were fished out and removed from the pay roll to enable the councils have more money to pay their staff salaries.
Oborovweri had told the governor that the bills passed through the rigorous process of different committees of the legislature, disclosing that it was a thing of joy that Delta state “is among the very few states that have passed the Administration of Criminal Justice Bill into law.”
