The Governor
of Delta State, Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa has urged principals of public
secondary schools to be morally upright and shun fraudulent practices in the
discharge of their duties.
Speaking
during an interactive session with principals of the state public secondary
schools on Friday in Asaba, Governor Okowa said that for a person to have risen
to the position of a school principal, such an individual should be a person of integrity and should not connive in any
fraudulent activity.
"As heads of the
schools, principals would be held liable for any fraudulent activity discovered
in their schools". Governor Okowa stressed.
“A
principal is a position of authority and integrity and we should care about our
conduct, as principals you should know the staff in your schools, from
investigations done within the last one week in the Asaba and Agbor Zones, we
discovered that there are over 28 strange names, 38 dead, 15 retired teachers and
some absconded ones in the payroll of some schools in the zones, who were still
collecting salaries. I know that no principal will claim not to be aware of
such names in their schools yet they allow government to pay such salaries,
this is fraudulent, the level of connivance is high for the names to still be
in the payroll” he said.
"Principals
should know when persons are out of the system through retirement and death and
pass such information to the relevant authority, if you continue to give
returns with such persons in your nominal rolls, it is fraudulent and criminal
for somebody that died as far back as 2012 to still be in the payroll, I want
to assure you that every such fraudulent cases discovered will be appropriately
dealt with and handed over to security agencies for prosecution, he added.
While
decrying the level of fraudulent activities in the school system, Governor
Okowa called for the support and cooperation of the principals to root out this
malaise in our schools explaining that the state could not afford to allow such
in the face of dwindling resources.
Senator
Okowa directed the principals to submit their nominal roll containing the names
of their staff, especially names of those who are dead, retired or absconded
but are in the payroll to the Office of Head of Service with an attestation on
the genuineness of the list.
While
disclosing that an investigative team would be set up to cross check the
nominal roll and returns from the principals, the governor also stated that
appointment in the principal cadre in the state would now be based on seniority
so as to rectify all perceived abnormalities in the teaching service.
Earlier
in a welcome address, The Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Mr.
Chiedu Ebie said that the purpose of the meeting was for the governor to
address certain issues affecting the education sector and ensure that School
principals live up to expectation in the discharge of their duties.
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