Disappearance Of Delta State Accountant-General was in Bad Faith, Says Uduaghan
Out-going Governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan has said the
disappearance of the Accountant-General of Delta State, Mr Cyril
Agbele, six days to hand over to the new administration was in bad
faith.
The Governor who stated this Thursday when Permanent Secretaries and
retired Permanent Secretaries paid him a farewell visit at Government
House, Asaba expressed surprise that after a fruitful discussion on
arrangements for the inauguration of the new administration including
security and entertainment, the Accountant-General made himself
incommunicado.
According to him, “the Accountant General has disappeared in the last
five – six days. The truth is that on Thursday we met and I told him
we have some payments to make in the areas of the swearing-in ceremony
coming up tomorrow (today), he did not object, he did not say no and
on Sunday, I was calling him but he was not picking my calls.”
“And of course on Monday his phones have been put off and on Tuesday,
he sent in a paper that he was sick. By Wednesday, he sent in a memo
and I find this act very inconsistent and irresponsible,” he stated.
“If there is something that I am doing that is not right, he should be
free to tell me it is not right rather than disappearing … just
imagine running the affairs of the state for a week without funds,
even security men has started withdrawing from their posts across the
state.”
“You know the security implication of this, particularly when peace
and security is a key agenda of my administration and I cannot
compromise on it. It is a conspiracy to grind my administration to a
halt and an attempt to set me up on a collision course with the
incoming administration. I think is very irresponsible.”
Governor Uduaghan challenged the Permanent Secretaries to be good
mentors to others, observing that civil servants were key to the
growth of the country.
“Permanent Secretary are very key to the growth of the country, I am
very grateful that you remember to say thank you for the little I have
done for you, I do know that most countries that have succeeded did so
because of their strong civil service. At a time in this country,
there was a strong civil service, whatever industry this country had
was made possible by civil servants.”
Continuing, Governor Uduaghan said, “mentoring the younger ones in the
Ministry is very important that is one of the reasons I was very keen
on employing children of retired Permanent Secretaries because their
parents can be their mentors, civil servants should be bold enough to
also tell their boss the truth.”
Earlier, the Head of Service, Mr Patrick Origho told the Governor that
the civil servants were happy with his antecedents as Governor of
Delta State and wished him well in his future endeavour.
High point of the occasion was the presentation of gifts to the
Governor by the serving and retired Permanent Secretaries.