Labour Tackles FG Over Botched Promotion Examination

Worried by the cancellation of promotion interview organised by the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) for workers in in the Directorate Cadre in Abuja, the organised Labour under the auspices of Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has demanded that the officers affected should be adequately compensated in order to avert industrial crisis.

In a statement signed by the ASCSN Secretary-General, Comrade Alade Lawal, it noted that 100 senior civil servants in the directorate cadre were invited from different parts of the country for promotion examination fixed for June 25-28, in Abuja, but the examination was cancelled after they had completed accreditation.

Lawal, said it was sad that senior civil servants were made to risk their lives, pay transport fares and accommodation in Abuja, arrived at the venue of the promotion examination only for it to be canceled.

The statement further noted that such an action could create the impression that some top government officials were sadists who take delight in inflicting sorrow on innocent civil servants.

Lawal in the statement expressed displeasure with the development, calling on the FCSC and the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF) to take necessary steps to pay the officers concerned double their Duty Tour Allowance (DTA) for the trauma and anxiety caused them.

The statement said: “The FCSC should henceforth stop the practice of summoning Civil Servants to Abuja for Promotion Examina- tion only for the exercise to be rescheduled. This almost irrational decision by the FCSC to be postponing Promotion Interviews is becoming standard practice and should be stopped.”

He recalled that in 2010 hundreds of Senior Civil Servants were invited for interview in Abuja for almost one week and the Government refused to pay them their DTA.