The Ekiti State Government has explained that it is not collecting voter cards from workers in order to clone them.
It said the voter cards were collected from beneficiaries of loan as a means of identification.
The Commissioner for Information, Youths and Sports Development, Mr. Lanre Ogunsuyi, stated this in response to allegation that the state was cloning the voter cards after collecting them.
He said, “It is not true that government is cloning workers’ voter cards. What we are doing is an empowerment for the workers which is optional because nobody is being compelled for it.
“The loan is optional and somebody can look at the conditions attached and such a person can opt out if he or she is not satisfied with the conditions.
“The reason why women are asked to bring their voter cards is that majority of them don’t have driving licence, national identity card or travel passport and their easy means of identification is voter card.
“Nobody should read any negative meaning to the good intention of the government to empower its citizens. No card is being cloned anywhere.”
An interest group in the state work force, the Enlightened Workers’ Forum, had queried the collection of voter cards before workers could be given loan.
The group in a statement on Sunday by its state Coordinator, Mike Bamidele, stated that women civil servants were the first set of beneficiaries of the loan scheme as the men would soon take their turn.