Abia Govt To NLC: Some Senior Civil Servants Have No Credentials

Abia State Government has told the leadership of the State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) that what it misconstrued as another verification exercise, which it directed its members to resist, was actually online submission of documents with which they were employed.

The government which denied embarking on another verification of civil servants explained that the ongoing exercise in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as in the 17 Local Government Areas was a government directive to workers to upload their credentials online because the government discovered that some senior civil servants do not have documents in their files.

The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Prince Okey Kanu, said the reason for the exercise was to ascertain the documents with which the workers were employed in the first place, and promoted to the present positions they occupied.

According to the Commissioner, “The government had planned to make certain appointments from within the civil service and when the files of some senior civil servants were brought forward, it was found out that there were no papers (necessary documents) in those files.

“There were questions as regards the credentials with which these civil servants were working with; on what basis were they employed; on what basis have they been promoted over the years? Questions and more questions.”

He said it was in the interest of the workers that government resolved it should be done online so workers would not have to go through the hassle of physical verification and condemned the stand of Labour that directed its members to disregard the government directive without consultation.

He described as unfortunate a similar directive the State NULGE Secretary issued to its members, and disabused the minds of civil servants and members of the public who may have been misled by the false alarm and wrong narrative.

The Commissioner also described as unfair to the State government, the attitude of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NUP, who, over the weekend, issued a statement to the effect that their executives did not represent them well during the discussions and subsequent agreement that led to the payment of their outstanding pensions in the state.

He said it was funny that the complaint was coming after the pensioners had received bank credit alerts of their pensions.

“They embarked on a unilateral action and decided to write a public letter to the government without first seeking for clarifications from the government officials concerned.

“That’s not the right way to go about it; not with a government that means well for workers; a government that has paid Abia pensioners their outstanding pensions with some dating back to 2014; a government that promised to pay pensioners their full monthly pensions going forward and has fulfilled that promise in the month of April and is poised to sustain the payments going forward; a government that has come to your rescue after being owed several years of pensions; that’s not the way to show gratitude,” he said.