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Finance ministry workers
unqualified � World Bank
By Sanya Adejokun
Snr
Correspondent,
Abuja
Majority of the workers on
grade levels 01 to 06 in the Federal Ministry of Finance are illiterates
who can hardly write their own names correctly, according to consultants
from the World Bank monitoring the government�s programme.
Unofficial sources said in
Abuja at the weekend that the consultants met secretly with the reform
implementation committee and demanded to know the extent of the
reformation so far.
The team stated in a
preliminary report that some of the directors in the ministry rose through
the ranks without additional educational attainments.
The consultants are now
resident in the ministry, just like the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
team that monitored the implementation of the reform during the first term
of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
So far, two rounds of
verification exercises have been conducted to determine whether there are
ghost workers in the ministry, but reports showed that none has yet been
discovered.
Notwithstanding, the third and
probably final round of the verification begins at the end of this month
when the workers would be required to queue up to receive their salary in
person so as to ascertain their actual number.
Some months ago, Finance
Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told journalists in Abuja that of the 1,560
employees in the ministry, 1,092 (70 per cent) are semi-literate, with
qualifications ranging from primary school leaving certificate to
secondary school certificate.
She said it is one of the
shocking discoveries from the restructuring exercise being carried out in
the ministry as one of the five pilot ministries proposed for the
government�s structural reform programme.
Of the number, 405 hold
primary school leaving certificates and 684 possess school certificates or
equivalent.
Only 202 (13 percent) of the
workforce of the ministry, including the Budget Office, are university
graduates. Another 202 have ordinary diplomas or equivalent.
The discovery was made by a
committee headed by Finance Minister of State Nenedi Usman.
Its other findings include the
fact that �only eight percent of the staff have professional
qualifications relevant to the core functions of the ministry �
accountants, statisticians etc. Another eight percent are generalists;
five percent are support staff and the overwhelming proportion (79 per
cent) are categorised as others�.
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