The Presidential Committee on the Reform Process in the Nigeria Public Service, chaired by Alhaji Adamu Fika, on Monday submitted its report with a call on the Federal Government to cut the allowances of Permanent Secretaries and directors in the federal civil service.
It also advocated the abrogation of the tenure policy in the public service.
The committee, which was constituted in March 2011, was mandated to review the tenure of top civil servants, a mandate that caused bad blood among some of its members.
While submitting the report to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Pius Anyim, the committee argued that the tenure policy, which was introduced in 2009 for Permanent Secretaries and directors, was done without carrying out any impact assessment study.
It stated that the policy was a violation of the affected officers’ rights.
The committee added that the policy had largely infringed on the terms of engagement of the officers concerned, while the civil service had lost some of its most competent and experienced hands as a result.
Speaking during the submission of the report, Fika said although the tenure policy had succeeded in freeing positions and a good number of officers who would otherwise be stagnated had been promoted, removing top officers merely gave room for junior and less-experienced officers who might not even be interested in the service.
He said every organisation should cherish and treasure competence and take all necessary steps to retain all its experienced officers.
The committee also recommended a downward review of the packages and allowances of public office holders that were fixed by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, which took effect in 2007, so that there would not be much difference with what was accruable to the ordinary citizens.
The committee described as worrisome the trend where allowances were over 10 times more than salaries and called for an urgent need to halt the situation.
“It is certainly not morally defensible from the perspective of social justice or any known moral criterion that such huge sum of public funds is consumed by an infinitesimal fraction of the people, which is less than 0.013 per cent of the total population,” it said.
The committee was of the view that the politicisation of the public service remained the significant cause of most of the problems, which had bedevilled it, saying the most disastrous effect was the virtual “replacement of the merit-based system of the public service bestowed on us by the founding fathers with the discredited patronage.”
It said in appointment, promotion and discipline as well as in the day-to-day functions of the public service, political considerations now seemed to be the dominant factors, adding that political intrusion was taking several forms.
The committee said, “Today, they have literally abandoned the best tradition of the service and its core value, and sacrificed the ethos of the public service at the altar of self-interest; and the only thing they seem to care about is lining their own pockets.
“We fully support the principle that all public service questions, including appointments, promotions, transfers, postings, dismissal, and other disciplinary matters should be kept completely free and independent of political control. We hope that the traditional promotion, according to qualification, experience and merit will be maintained.
“We, therefore, recommend that Mr. President should convene a conference on the restoration of the merit-based system to be attended by him, the vice-president, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and the national leaders and chairmen of all political parties represented in the National Assembly or state assemblies to commit themselves and their parties to the ideal of the merit-based public service.”
The committee also recommended that the Federal Government should treat its employees with a sense of justice and equality, noting that the numerous consolidated salary groupings in the public service should be collapsed into one, adding that each and every segment of the society was as important as the other.
“No work group enjoys such paramount status over others or has such omnipotence in skills as to enable it minister to the needs of every segment of the society, and so deserve such grossly discriminatory and permanent special treatment manifested in a salary structure well above all others,” it said.