By Azore Opio
A census in the University of Buea, UB, has revealed that some lecturers had been drawing duty allowances for ranks/posts that they did not hold. A team from the Integrated Computerised State Personnel and Payroll Management System, SIGIPES, based in the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Yaounde, carried out the census recently.
University of Buea
In the process of screening the staff, the team discovered that some of them had been drawing duty allowances for ranks/posts that they did not hold. A request for names of staff that did not fully satisfy the census team by The Post was parried away.
The census agents requested birth and collective life certificates, contract/recruitment decision, photocopies of payslips, appointment decisions amongst others, from the lecturers.
According to the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Control, Chief Dr. John Mangea O. Ebanja, a few irregularities were discovered on some pay sheets. For example, a lecturer might be earning an associate professor's duty allowance. When the team tried to match the lecturer's grade and the allowance it would be discovered that he/she was not entitled to that particular allowance.
Ebanja said it was likely that some Ministry of Finance staff conniving with ('friends') lecturers would cause such an error to occur on the pay sheets.Or sometimes, a lecturer would be moved to a higher grade and the Finance staff would 'forget' to strike off the lower emolument. The difference would then be 'added' to the lecturer's new allowance without 'his/her' knowledge.
Ebanja said SIGIPES was cleaning up, or, as the Director of Administrative Affairs, Dr. Kenneth Ndamukong, said, "tuning up pay vouchers and all other documents pertaining to the lecturers."
The SIGIPES team was in UB from February 13 to 20 with a view to verify recently appointed or transferred personnel to the University's central and external services; ascertain dead personnel who had worked in the institution, and those who have attained retirement age; the names of those who have worked in UB and have been transferred elsewhere since 2003.
Those who had undergone the census in 2003 were also required to deposit copies of their service reports, and the University administration too, had to present progress reports of the lecturers up to December 2005.
All these were dictated in a letter signed by Fame Ndongo, Higher Education Minister, to the Vice Chancellor of UB.The lecturers on their part, were required to present the originals of academic certificates at the VC's private secretariat by 2 pm on Wednesday, March 8, at the latest.
The main purpose behind the SIGIPES exercise was to enable the Ministry of Higher Education to have better control of university teaching personnel and payroll procedures before taking over the payment of the staff in the ongoing decentralisation drive.
It was also an attempt to attack a key source of corruption within the Ministry of Finance: to weed out "ghost workers" and personnel, who draw disproportionate allowances.
The formation of SIGIPES was a reaction to complaints from other Ministries about a lack of transparency and lack of responsiveness in the way the Ministry of Finance was handling personnel files.
Thus SIGIPES was designed to devolve payroll and personnel responsibilities to one or two of the larger line Ministries. At press time, the SIGIPES team was working in the University of Douala.
It should be noted that the payroll/personnel statuses of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Secondary Education and Basic Education have been decentralised.
This is traditionally what la republique du cameroun is up to. Southern cameroonians, you need to be careful not to copy any bad value from the current leadership of la republique du cameroun.
Posted by: rexon | Friday, 10 March 2006 at 06:20 PM
Just take your time Southern Cameroonian, do not copy what La repulblic is doing, we are a nation by ourself, still figthing for our independent. La republic had theirs from France, we were supoosed to have ours from England but they sent it to La repulblic. We will have ours sooner or later.
Posted by: la repulblic | Saturday, 11 March 2006 at 08:25 PM
Rexon, Eventhough we all have freedom to express ourselves, it is desirable to always digest content of articles well before reacting. Your reactions are mostly out of context. It is absolutely ridiculous to realise that you keep on posting your secessionist views in this forum in the name of reacting to articles even when it is not necessary. I am sure that you are learned enough to understand how to react to articles. I am not a politician. My aim of reacting this way is just to partly ensure that this forum remains interesting for us to keep on consulting
Posted by: Terry T | Monday, 13 March 2006 at 09:05 AM