While giving the reasons for the deductions noticed in the payment of May salary and allowances of thousands of the civil servants in the state, a development that has resulted in widespread outcry and condemnation the Director, Establishment in the Office of the State Head of Service, Isiaka Tijjani, attributed the deductions to human error which he said arose as a result of problems encountered with the implementation of the World Bank Assisted Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS) and the Integrated Financial Information Management System (IFMIS).
Briefing Journalists at the NUJ Press Center on Monday, the Director said that before the introduction of the policy, the state government met with the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and other relevant stakeholders MDAs on the benefit of the HRMIS and IFMIS in the state civil service.
Isiaka Tijjani further explained that a Human Resource Unit was subsequently set up to address possible complaints that might arise as result of the policy explaining that following the implementation, it affected civil servants in three categories: those who had their salaries and allowances deducted, those who were not paid their May salaries at all and those who had problems relating to technical issues.
The Director said, “We did not envisage that the magnitude of the problem will be like this. What we assumed, we were told, would be minor complaints here and there but now with this recent development, we are now aware of the problems and we are going to address them.”
The Director, who said that the policy was aimed at blocking financial wastages in the civil service, explained that the policy did not affect the actual computed salary of workers of the state.
Isiaka Tijjani further said that “Some of the affected civil servants when we were generating this information, we requested for their nominal rolls. Some of the MDAs gave us the nominal rolls that were not fully updated because some were promoted thereafter and we had to work with what was provided for us. You will discover that probably in the month of April, the promotion was affected but when we implemented the nominal rolls that were given to us, it was not the one that was updated, it was as if you reverted to your former level. So these were some of the errors that were not intentional but gives us an opportunity to update some of the shortcomings that we had.”
While tendering an unreserved apology on behalf of the government for the hardship brought upon all the workers so affected by the policy, Isiaka Tijjani disclosed that government already had taken decisive steps to address the problem.
He said the Human Resource Unit under his office has so far received complaints from no fewer than 20 MDAs including the state-owned Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic over the shortfalls in the salaries and allowances, assuring that the issues would soon be addressed.
In his remarks, the State NLC Chairman, Comrade Hashimu Gital, refuted claims that the Union was passive since the problem arose.
Hashimu Gital said, “Since May salaries were being paid, we received various complaints from our members and immediately we received the reports we summoned a State Executive Council Meetings for both the NLC and the TUC in Bauchi and deliberated on the issues that arose from the payment of the salaries and allowances”.
“We are aware and have been part of the system since its introduction to the time of its implementation. We felt the issues were tackled because we appealed to the government than before the implementation they have to ensure that casualties are reduced to the barest minimum and when it was implemented we realised that the outcry from our members was too many and we immediately summoned the SEC meeting to see the way forward”, he added.
It would be recalled that civil servants in Bauchi state had expressed displeasure over deductions they noticed when they received their May salaries and allowances prompting some of them to issue an ultimatum to the government.
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