Reps probe FG’s abolition of civil service tenure policy

THE House of Representatives, on Thursday, mandated the House Committee on Public Service Matter to probe the abolition of the civil service tenure policy in the Federal Civil Service.

The House resolution followed a motion sponsored by Honourable Kehinde Agboola on “need to reinstate the abolished civil service tenure policy.”

While moving the motion, the lawmaker raised concern on the abolition of the civil service tenure policy on June 20, 2016 by the Federal Government.

According to him, “In spite of the far-reaching positive impacts the tenure policy has had on the public service, the Federal Government suddenly cancelled the scheme that stipulated two terms of four years for permanent secretaries and a single eight-year term for directors which commenced in 2009.

“The tenure policy regime guided against stagnation, redundancy, facilitated career progression by ensuring vacancies, especially at directorate cadre, thereby motivating the staff for enhanced productivity.”

While the policy was still in force, he said that, the policy also extensively checked the bureaucratic corruption in the civil service underpinned by people who occupied the same positions for inordinately long period of time, in some cases, 15 to 20 years.

The cancellation of the policy, according to him, “is a major setback to civil service reform and transformation necessary for a cost effective, efficient and result-oriented civil service system, a realisation that informed the protests embarked upon by the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria shortly after the policy was reversed.”

The reversal of the policy, he added was yet another policy inconsistency which for decades had swept through the civil service making the system uncreative, vulnerable and politicised.

In his words, “Cancelling the tenure policy will make the tenure of the elite corps of the civil service to be determined by records that are susceptible to manipulations, a situation that would intrinsically result in politicising the system and scaling up systemic corruption contrary to the dictates of a government that has anti-corruption precept as one of its cardinal objectives.”

The motion scaled through when the Speaker, Honourable Yakubu Dogara put it to voice vote.