Kogi Assures of Job Security, Says no Worker will be Sacked
The Kogi State government yesterday allayed fears of the state environmental workers as government had no plans to lay off any staff or outsource their job to private organisations.
The Commissioner for environment and Natural Resources, Mrs. Rosemary Oshikoya made this known while addressing newsmen on environmental and health workers union's threat of industrial dispute with the state government over plans to engage the services of private licensed sanitary inspectors in the state.
According to her, "the state government will sign a private partnership agreement next week that will see private investors actively involved in premises inspection across the state.”
The union had argued that the involvement of private premises inspectors was never discussed with the Union and so had seen it as an attempt to take over their responsibility and render them redundant.
However, the commissioner said it was a misconception on the part on the Union to think that government was out to render them redundant when in actual fact government t was involving the private partnership arrangement to train them within a period of time to attain required license that would qualify them for premises inspection as required by relevant environmental laws.
According to her, it was also not true that the Unions were not carried along in taking the decision when the chairman was part of the committee that had been deliberating on the issue.
Oshikoya said that the New Direction Blueprint clarified on the role of PPP in delivering on its targets for the sector.
She noted that Kogi State waste management Board law 2013 and the PPP law 2014 empowered the state to engage PPP in the sector, adding that the PPP process included adequate stakeholder sensitisation and engagement which in addition to media engagements including the first ever state convened stakeholder meeting in December 2016 where EHOs and stakeholders and EHOs, from LGAs, State, Federal levels and the Registrar EHORECON, KWASU, UNN, FUL, SHT Idah, and EHOAN experts participated.
This, she said, was followed by meetings with traditional institutions and community stakeholders by federal constituency in 2017.
Also speaking, the Director General of Bureau of Public Private Partnership (PPP) Mr. Bob Atlanta explained that the participation of the private sector in environmental health monitoring (premises inspection) would among other things, contribute to capacity building and on the job training of EHOs currently in the civil service.