ABUJA — A MAJOR re-organisation is imminent in the Federal Ministry of Finance which will confer on the ministry a reasonable level of autonomy. The pending changes will entail removing the staff from the control of the Head of Service and empower it to hire and fire staff.
This followed the discovery that the most of the staff are not fit to work there. Only eight per cent staff are graduates of Economics and other disciplines relevant to the work of the ministry which provides the framework for fiscal monetary and other macroeconomic policies.
Of a total staff strength of 1,560, only 13 per cent have a university degree or Higher qualifications, four per cent have the Higher National Diploma; 13 per cent, Ordinary National Diploma;44 per cent secondary school certificate holders; while the rest 26 per cent have primary school certificate.
Special Assistant to the Minister, Mr Paul Nwabuikwu, said yesterday in Abuja, that the ministry would conduct a pay-parade at end of this month to determine the actual staff of the ministry.
The pay-parade is part of the restructuring activities of the federal civil service to be undertaken under the government reform agenda. When a similar pay-parade was conducted by the Ministry of the Federal Territory, about 3000 ghost workers were discovered.
The ministry of finance exercise is aimed at determining the true number of its staff and how relevant they are to the work of the ministry.
A committee set up to investigate the staff structure came out with such findings as: eight per cent economists, accountants and statisticians; eight per cent generalists; five per cent support staff ; while the overwhelming proportion were categorized as “others”.
“The committee has made many recommendations on various aspects of its operations. These recommendations have been represented to the president, the Head of Service and the Bureau of Public Service Reform. They will soon be presented to the Federal Civil Service in detail”, the release said.
Many of the recommendations were said to have been approved by the president, particularly the plan to professionalise the ministry through retraining and hiring of the right quality of staff to realize its vision.
According to the release the implication is that staff can now build their career within the ministry. The proposal to restructure the departments of the ministry in line with NEEDS has also been given the go-ahead.
