Mohammed said there was no such directive from the State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, to relieve the affected staff of their duties as maliciously reported in some quarters.
According to the Executive Secretary, the decision of the council to conduct a headcount of its staff was informed by the discovery that out of the 500 temporary staff on the payroll of the council, only about 125 were available during the exercise which lasted for two weeks.
She said the headcount was conducted to verify the number of staff and also to uncover ghost workers (if any), who were on the payroll of the council.
Mohammed added, “We have more than 500 temporary workers and I have not been seeing them at work and we gave them two weeks to do an auditing of the temporary staff. We gave them two weeks to come.
“The first day, they did not come and we postponed it and the final day, it was only 75 per cent of the people that responded and we gave the few people who did not respond letters, that they should bring proofs of their letters of employment which they could not bring.”
The LG boss, however, said the decision to reverse the retrenchment, showed that there was no ulterior motive behind the exercise as it was in the best interest of the council to ensure that probity, accountability and fiscal responsiveness were taking into account when expending public funds.
She also debunked reports that she received the directive to retrench the workers from the state governor, saying the online report, which quoted her as saying the Lagos State Governor gave her directive to sack the workers, was unfounded and totally untrue.
“Lagos State Governor cannot give me directive to sack anybody because presently, there is a Ministry of Wealth and Job Creation by the governor, which our LG has adopted that we will encourage people to work and we will provide jobs for them.
“But some people are not ready to work; they just come to the council to collect money and go and with this money, we are paying to about 500 temporary workers, we can use for capital projects, which we have been doing since we assumed office,” she said.
Describing the reports as damaging and uncomplimentary, Mohammed said the council was nevertheless poised to ensure that life was made more comfortable for residents, saying the huge amount used to service the ghost workers could be better utilised for meaningful projects.
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