The staff of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) last Tuesday embarked on a 3-day warning strike to press home their demands. The workers under the auspices of the Joint Unions Action Committee (JUAC) had demanded for the implementation of the FCT Civil Service Commission Act which was signed into law by President Muhamadu Buhari in 2018.
The Act establishes the Federal Capital Territory Civil Service Commission that’s charged with the primary responsibility of appointing, promoting, disciplining and transferring of civil servants within the FCT civil service.
The Act also sought an end to the appointment of a permanent secretary for the FCTA, providing instead for a head of service as obtainable in other states. However, New National Star gathered that three years after its enactment, the Act is yet to be implemented by the FCT Administration, thus drawing the ire of the aggrieved workers.
Other demands of the staff include the removal of all FCTA staff from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), payment of promotion arrears, release of all pending cases of conversion, upgrading and advancement, the abolishment of casualisation of workers in the FCTA, especially in transportation secretariat, water board and the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), among others. Workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity in separate interviews, insisted that the Act when put into practice would remove all administrative bottlenecks and ensure improved welfare for all. They stated that the current Permanent Secretary, Olusade Adesola was deployed from the office of the head of the civil service of the federation and is occupying a position which the Act does not provide for. One of the staff interviewed said that “what we are asking for is for the right thing to be done. We would not be asking if it is not our right.
There is nothing personal about the demands. The promotion for example, concerns all of us. Promotion arrears have not been paid for a very long time. Those that got promoted in 2016, 2017 and 2018 have not been paid till now. As we speak, we are waiting for promotion letters to be released, it keeps piling up.” Another staff noted that a lot of workers, including herself, are casual workers. She lamented the lack of job security and emphasised the importance of being made a permanent worker. However, she accused the FCT Minister, Mohammed Bello of turning deaf ears to their cries.
“And these are necessary things that should be put in place to enable workers carry out their jobs effectively. It should not be hard for the minister to talk to the stakeholders and implement our demands,” she lamented. Another worker raised the issue of poor welfare for FCTA staff, pointing to the exorbitant services offered by the staff canteen as an example. “We want a canteen for staff. The one here is just bearing the name staff canteen, yet it is operated by a private contractor. It is not supposed to be so.
If it is for workers, it would have been subsidised and the pricing will not be this high,” the staff declared. When contacted, the Chairman Joint Unions Action Committee (JUAC), Comrade Matiluro Oluwakorede, hinted that after the warning strike, the joint unions ought to proceed on an indefinite strike, but said the unions haven’t done so because they don’t want to close the door to an early resolution of the problem. He revealed that though discussions between the FCTA management and the unions are ongoing, the position the administration is taking is not favourable to the JUAC.
According to Oluwakorede, the union had called the attention of the authorities and other stakeholders to the existence of Executive Order 1 of 2004, even before the passage of the FCT Civil Service Commission Act by the National Assembly and its subsequent signing into law by the president. He asserted that the refusal to implement the law has had adverse effects on the workers.
Oluwakorede was, however, happy that the management had commenced the issuance of promotion letters to the workers which he said was one of the demands of the unions. “The only thing we are waiting for is the promotion arrears which is tied to the budget and the National Assembly has not passed it,” the union leader added.
Furthermore, he revealed that a lot of issues have been outlined by both parties and that machinery is being put in place to quickly attend to the workers demands, especially the ones that have little or nothing to do with money.
The labour leader hinted that the FCTA permanent secretary has been directed to work with the FCT minister in resolving the demands of the staff. “Immediately it is done, we are going to call our staff and do another press conference to inform them on the new agreement and how this will be worked out. In other words, we are just going to suspend the strike; we are not going to call it off. So, should they now renege on any of the agreements, it will be easy for us to go back. That is why you have not heard anything because we are having a window of fine-tuning what the agreement is,” he explained.
On the issue of the removal of the permanent secretary, Oluwakorede explained that “sometimes, when you talk to the press, they talk through different dimensions. There is a lacuna and that is what they are capitalizing on.” According to him, the FCT Civil Service Commission Act and the Executive Order 1 of 2004 that the workers want implemented doesn’t give room for a permanent secretary. “When it was partially implemented in 2004, the then permanent secretary was moved back to the office of the head of civil service of the federation before Aliyu Modibbo, the then minister, somehow brought the issue of permanent secretary again.
If these documents are fully implemented, the implication of it is that there will not be room for any federal permanent secretary again. Yet, the implementation of this law is not a one- off. It is a gradual process,” he stated. Oluwakorede explained that the issue is going to take two to three years before it stabilises, adding that “I can bet you that this permanent secretary will be thinking of leaving by that time.” He restated that what the workers were agitating for the implementation of the law. “We don’t have any issue with the man; the only issue we have is that let the law be implemented. We did not make the law; they made the law. So, what we are saying is if the law is in place, our staff are going to benefit quite a lot and most of these issues we are talking about, nothing less than 75 per cent of them will be addressed through this law. “So, if there is a part in the law that is not affecting anybody, we don’t have problem with that. Government can call the same law and make amendments, but for now, what we have at hand is this and we want it implemented. The FCT Civil Service Commission was enacted in 2018, but it has not been implemented after three years.
“Now, the Executive Order 1 is the one that established FCT. It removed what we used to have as a Ministry of FCT, so we were transformed from being a ministry into a full administration which is finally supposed to be transformed into a whole state. But for now, the constitution of Nigeria still treats the FCT as one of the states in the federation,” he said. Contacted, the FCT Director of Human Resources, Mohammed Bashir, acknowledged that the lingering labour crisis was created by a communication gap between the management and workers. He assured that the demands of the JUAC were being addressed as the implementation of the FCT Civil Service Commission Act was ultimate in the labour issues.