El-Rufai, Yayale, commission clash over reforms
From Martins Oloja,
Abuja Bureau Chief
PRESIDENT Olusegun Obasanjo's moves to reform the public service through the much advertised right-sizing are being hampered by seemingly irreconcilable differences between the office of Head of Service and the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC).
Specifically, the same President that approved the right-sizing, which affected about 260 jobs in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in August this year, has also just endorsed the Head of Service's review memo that culminated in recall of many of the affected civil servants by the FCSC.
The immediate effect of the President's volte face manifested before the Christmas when chief executives of the six pilot ministries which the Federal Government has earmarked for right-sizing in the first quarter next year were said to have shown apprehension about the policy somersault over the FCT ministry's experiment.
Although the Public Service Reform Bureau (PSRB's) Director-General, Dr. Goke Adegoroye, told The Guardian on telephone last week that the President is "still very committed to the public service reform agenda as he cannot abandon the project midstream after setting up a bureau to co-ordinate that," most of the chief executives of the ministries and agencies earmarked for right-sizing are said to be quite uncomfortable with the way Obasanjo is handling the policy issue that the NEEDS document has endorsed and advertised to the world.
There has been some disagreement between the Head of Service, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed and the FCT Minister, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, over the fate of those retrenched in the Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory (MFCT) and the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA).
While Yayale had agreed to the right-sizing in principle, he, however, insisted that due process must be followed. El-Rufai whose ministry kick-started the exercise has, however, said his office had crossed the rubicon.
In this connection, due process means having to query the affected officers first and examining their responses.
But The Guardian confirmed at the weekend that trouble began for the reform (right-sizing) recently when policy confusion emerged from the Presidency. The origin: While the FCT minister was insistent on irreversibility of his action as approved by Obasanjo, the Head of Service had fired a memo to the same President on the expediency of following a due process through a committee whose main responsibility is to review the retrenchment which El-Rufai had carried out last August.
The specific objective of the review is to save a lot of jobs of the victims of the right-sizing in FCT. Surprisingly, the President who reportedly approved the FCT minister's action also okayed the prayers of the Head of Service, who is also a member of the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
Consequently, the presidential panel co-ordinated by the Head of Service recommended that four directors, 18 deputy directors, 20 assistant directors be excluded from the list of those retrenched by the FCT ministry.
In the same vein, the committee recommended that five directors, 13 deputy directors and 29 assistant directors should be retired in public interest. Similarly, the Head of Service panel recommended that 10 officers on Grade Level 09 to 14 retired should be retired; the commission disagreed and upheld only eight.
But the Head of Service's report to the President was not final. This is because the final arbiter in staff promotion, discipline and retirement, in this connection, is the office of the Federal Civil Service Commission.
The presidential panel report was thus passed to the influential FCSC that is covered by National Commission (Privileges and Immunities) Act 1963.
The 1963 Act provides immunity for Police Service Commission, Federal Judicial Service Commission and the FCSC as well as for the privileges of the documents of such bodies.
The 1963 law also provides that "no member shall be liable to be sued in any court of law for any acts done or omitted in due exercise of his duty."
When the FCSC reviewed the presidential panel's report, the result was devastating to Obasanjo's reform agenda.
Relying on the 1963 law, the commission changed almost everything the HOS recommended to the President.
For instance, where Head of Service (HOS) panel exonerated four directors, the commission exempted seven. The HOS panel exonerated 18 deputy directors but the FCSC backed 25; while the HOS cleared 20 assistant directors, the commission okayed 25.
Besides, while HOS recommended the retirement of five directors, the commission agreed to only one, while the HOS wanted 13 deputy directors retired, the commission approved only eight; where the HOS asked that 29 assistant directors be retired, the FCSC approved 27 and while the HOS wanted only 10 officers retired in the Grade Level 09 to 14, the commission wanted eight.
The only point of concord of the two bodies in the exercise of due process is where the Head of Service office said "already retired and upheld by the commission - two deputy directors and five assistant directors."
The Guardian confirmed that the combined efforts of the Head of Service and the commission have returned many of those retrenched and retired in the pilot exercise of right-sizing in the FCT.
The Head of Service has conveyed the outcome of the review committee to the President.
The FCSC may post those affected outside the FCT, where the minister said he would not be able to work with them.
The posting is feasible because the Ayida Panel report white paper on Civil Service Reforms (1999) restored the concept of pool system, which the Dotun Philips Reform/Decree 34 of 1988 abolished. Under the system, civil servants can be moved from one ministry or extra-ministerial department to the other. Only those in parastatals do not enjoy such advantage.
Meanwhile, the President has also approved the review of those affected in the FCT parastatal (the FCDA) by the August gale of retrenchment.
The committee comprises five permanent secretaries from the offices of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and the Head of Service, Ministry of Justice, FCSC, including the FCDA's co-ordinating executive secretary, FCDA and the MFCT permanent secretary.
The policy somersault is said to have jolted the reform activists and drivers in the president's economic team, most of who are warming up for comprehensive right-sizing in the first quarter of next year.
Only last week at the Kwara Economic Summit in Ilorin, the Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala whose office co-ordinates public service reforms, hinted of right-sizing in six ministries next year.
The ministries earlier earmarked for the pilot scheme include finance, education, FCT, national planning commission, information and national orientation, etc.
But the pilot ministries' officers are said to be quite jolted by the implications of the new deal with the President by the HOS and the enormous powers of the FCSC in the reform agenda.
As a veteran civil servant put it at the weekend, "what the Head of Service office and the FCSC have achieved is that there is no way the President can carry out his objective in the right-sizing project if the drivers of the reform have to rely on the old structures to carry out reform. Note that El-Rufai is the head of public service reform portfolio in the president's economic team.
"If the President can interrupt the flow of reform process in FCT just like that to the extent that some of the well-known crooks who destroyed the land department in FCT, for instance, have been cleared by a presidential panel to return to the service, then the whole reform process is a huge joke..."`
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