There is unease in
the Federal Civil Service over the non-promotion of qualified directors, who
have been stagnant on their current posts for many years. The affected directors,
who were due for promotion have been forced to remain on their current
positions and are losing hundreds of millions of Naira that should have accrued
to them if they had been promoted as at when due. According to some some of
them, they might be forced to take their case to President Muhammadu Buhari if
the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, does not
act swiftly to save them from further stagnation and deprivation arising from
their non-elevation.
Most of the affected top civil servants were due for
promotion from Assistant to Deputy Directors and from Deputy to Directors since
2012. Most disappointing to the affected bureaucrats is the fact that many of
them do not have many years to spend in the civil service either on account of
age or years of service to the nation. One of the men who took promotion
examination to be promoted from Assistant to Deputy Director in one of the
federal ministries said he was disappointed, having passed the qualifying
examination last year only to be told that there was no vacancy for him to be
promoted to the next level.
Findings showed that the stagnation in the nation’s civil
service stems from the suspension of the tenured policy by the Buhari
administration, an innovation that was put in place by the previous
administration to create room for more qualified public servants to grow and
reach the apex of their careers before retiring. Under the tenured policy, all
directors who have served up to eight years on one post are to give way for new
ones. The arrangement created new openings for the prompt retirement of civil
servants and created room for the promotion of others with ease. However, for
reasons yet to be made public, the Buhari administration on assumption of
office suspended the policy and invariably returned to the old practice in
which directors can serve for as many years as they can as long as they can
‘prove’ that they have not reached the retirement age of 60 or 35 years in
service. But the Director of Communication in the Office of the Head of Civil
Service of the Federation, Haruna Imrana, defended the action of the
government, saying that decision to drop the policy was contained in a circular
to all ministries, departments and agencies, signed by Winifred Oyo-Ita. The
policy, introduced by a former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation,
Steve Oronsaye, under the late President Umaru Yar’Adua administration,
prescribed two terms of four years each for permanent secretaries of ministries,
while directors were entitled to an eight-year tenure. The policy also affected
top level officers in federal ministries, departments and agencies. The
circular, which conveyed the president’s directive on the suspension, said the
order took immediate effect, while all concerned were urged to comply
accordingly. He said the implication was that civil servants could now stay in
service until they were 35 years in service or they turn 60.
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