Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, has announced the conversion of ad-hoc staff at the 33 local government councils to permanent staff.
The declaration was made during the commissioning of the newly-built Local Government House and Staff Training School in Ibadan on Wednesday.
Governor Makinde explained that this decision aims to bridge the workforce gap at the local government level, according to Daily Post.
He directed that due process for the employment must be followed and perfected within four weeks.
Makinde reiterated his administration’s commitment to collaborating with local government authorities to improve citizens’ lives.
He highlighted past achievements, including payment of primary school teachers’ leave bonuses from 2017 to 2023.
The governor also noted significant progress in settling pension and gratuity backlogs, with over N18 billion paid to date. Additionally, N15 billion has been paid to retirees.
Makinde assured that his administration would continue renovating and transforming facilities within the State Secretariat, targeting completion before his tenure ends in 2027.
The newly-built Local Government House and Staff Training School is expected to enhance productivity and provide a conducive environment for local government staff.
Makinde said, “We will continue to work with the local government so that our vision at the state level can also be sold to the local government administrators. When there is synergy, we can achieve more.
“For primary school teachers, their leave bonuses were last paid in 2017. The primary schools, PHCs and other things were in a bad shape. But we have paid the primary school teachers their leave bonus for 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
“So, we had to figure out a way of reducing this deficit and we won’t play games with anybody because they are our own people. We insisted that first line items must be drawn against the LG account.
“It was a home-grown way of ensuring that outstanding pension and gratuities are paid. We have paid backlogs of over N18 billion in pension and we have also paid over N15 billion gratuities to retirees.”
