HOS, NAN AND SALARIES OF CIVIL SERVANTS

Salaries and allowances of federal civil servants, including monthly subventions, are statutory payments and charges of the federal government, carefully carried out by relevant agencies with no interference from any quarter. However, according to the Daily Trust of Thursday 23rd July, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) was alleged to have blamed the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation for a reduction in its monthly subvention and the gross underfunding of the agency. This is an unfortunate transferred aggression as the HOS is not trusted with the responsibility of revenue sharing. The chairman, Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Employees, NAN chapter, Suleiman Haruna had earlier accused the federal government of a reduction of its monthly subvention from N100 million to N12 million.

He stated that all the NAN offices across the country are grossly underfunded, a situation, according to him which has negative impact on the organisation, considering its role in the media industry. He said the staff has appealed to the federal government and management of the agency to look into staff welfare, better remuneration and improved conditions of service commensurate with the level of enormous work put in by the staff of the agency.

The chapter chairman declared that the situation in NAN is so dire that the morale of staff is low, which has affected the staff performance and level of productivity over the years, especially with the current inflation rates. Yetunde Bada, NUJ Chairman, NAN branch, also pointed out that the shortfall in payment of promotion arrears of 2014, 2015 and 2016 that the federal government magnanimously released to civil servants is filled with stories in NAN “as it was computed wrongly,” adding that “the step differences that were to be paid staff were also wrongly computed.”

Taking a closer look at the allegations against the HOS, it appears the staff of NAN wrongfully directed their grievances. The Office of the Head of Service does not function as a revenue agency of government trusted with the duty to pay salaries and allowances. There are schedules for various agencies as spelt out and outlined by the provisions of the act that establishes such Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

Again, the federal government at all times attempts to address labour disputes as they occur especially on remuneration and work condition of civil servants, these processes are ongoing, while negotiations between workers and government is continuous.

NAN is a corporate media outfit of the federal government trusted with the responsibility to adequately inform the public through accurate processed information, so it will be wrong to accuse some agencies of wrong doings when the records prove otherwise.

There are rules of engaging government on workers remunerations, of which NAN is familiar with. Rather than resort to media hype, dialogue and amicable resolutions are methods of putting across requests of this nature.

The HOS is concerned with a total overhaul of the entire governing process of the public service through its reform agenda which is expected to give impetus to growth and development of the public sector and its functionality.

Statistics available to us show that the federal work force is less than 400, 000 Nigerians in a country with a population of about 200 million people, so its high time government gives emphasis to develop capacity of citizens not employed in the mainstream of the civil service. The facts are that government should focus more in creating job opportunities for other Nigerians, rather than placing premium on few citizens who have been privileged to secure federal government employment, not because they are more knowledgeable or most competent, but for obvious reasons of whom they know around the circles of governance.

It will be patriotic, if issues and agitations of better working conditions of civil servants are addressed without any form of confrontation, knowing very well that there are millions of Nigerians seeking for civil service employment, but to no avail.

However, the ongoing efforts by government to reform the civil service must ensure private sector participation, because it has been observed that the worker’s verification exercise that is currently being held by the head of service does not have effective participation from the private sector.

Therefore, government should take deliberate steps to partner the private sector and other Nigerians skilful in many ways to create inclusive governance that is aimed at addressing the challenges of the people as a whole.

There has been undue emphasis placed on public sector in a country where the rate of unemployment is alarming. So it will not be out of place to focus more on inclusiveness as contained in the strategy document of the 2017-2020 implementation reform process. Ofem Uket, Abuja