The Head of Service in Katsina State, Alhaji Lawal Aliyu, speaks on how Governor Ibrahim Shehu Shema’s administration is strengthening the civil service to enable it meet the mandate of executing government policies, plus how he is tackling problem of ghost workers, reports Adetutu Audu
How has it been since you assumed office as Head of Service in Katsina State?
I think it is all to Allah for giving us the opportunity to be head of civil servants in the state, to be able to reach the pinnacle of my career. My aim then, at best, was to be permanent secretary; just like the military, once you are a general, that is the end, being a Chief of Staff, is an additional privilege given to you by the executive or the Commander-in- Chief. To be Head of Service is a rare privilege given to me by the governor and I really thank Allah and His Excellency for choosing me among the pool of permanent secretaries.
So far so good, the challenges are quite enormous but with Allah’s guidance and His Excellency, as part of his vision and leadership, we have been able to achieve a lot. By and large, we have been able to maintain the tempo because, since I came in, our civil servants have been dynamic and rising up to the challenges, they have been part and parcel of the developmental structures.
Since assuming office,what has been your challenges?
The initial challenge at that time was the backlog of outstanding promotions and the training and retraining of civil servants. The issue of training is very fundamental in civil service and all the outstanding promotions, when it was presented to the governor, he approved all even with arrears. On the issue of training now, we can beat our chest to say the governor has given consideration for training and retraining of civil servants. We have what we call the short, long term and regular training processes. These trainings are on-going. The short term trainings are those ones you go to recognized institutions like ASCON, Centre for Management Development, and other cognate professional agencies like ICAN. The long term trainings are those ones civil servants go on course like our nurses reading BSc. nursing. In this regard, we have sent a lot of nurses for BSc so that they can reach the pinnacle of their career. We have policy and strategic courses at the Nigerian Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies which are the main senior executive courses for the award of MNI but they also have the junior policy and strategic courses.
The issue of ghost workers is common in the civil service, what are you doing about it in your state?
As you said, it is a phenomenon, it is like it has supernatural consideration but, for us here, you cannot say emphatically that we have it. Since the governor approved the biometric capture of all workers in the workforce of government, I don’t think we have that trend in the civil service; that is people earning pay but not working. We did the biometric in stages. The first was capturing the biometric of all civil servants in the state service. We then did another one for the staff in the local government service, including teachers. So I don’t think we have people in the civil service here earning without working.
Directors and Permanent Secretaries are not expected to spend more than eight years tenure, is it working in Katsina State?
It is not a directive. Democratically, since we have the 1999 Constitution and some semblance of federalism,to the best of my knowledge, the Federal Government does not have a direct bearing on the state. It is not like the military command structure thing with the state government. Any circular from the Federal Government is always addressed to the heads of agencies but if the states are willing to adopt it, they get the circular to adopt and adapt to suit their own environment. So it is not a directive per se but any good policy at the top, naturally we always take a cue from it to adopt and adapt to our local environment because the policy is aimed at weeding out aged staff so as to give room for young and dynamic ones in order to improve effectiveness of the civil service, so the state government has keyed into this policy. The governor has even set up a committee to study the tenure policy; incidentally, I am the head of the committee, after vigorous work, the report was submitted to Council which of course approved for its implementation. Let me tell you what makes that of Katsina State special, the governor, in view of the time frame given to civil servants affected by the policy, gave them three months salaries in lieu of notice for those being retired. I doubt if any state or even the Federal Government did anything like that. The implementation took off last September.
Bureaucracy is another factor that slows down government in civil service. How are you tackling this?
Redundancy in number in English is repeating what has been done. Bureaucracy in itself is not negative. It is positive.
Don’t you have duplication of duties?
We don’t have that. In reality in service, every officer employed has what we call schedule of duty and schedule of duty does not overlap. They can only overlap in terms of seniority. In service, you don’t have redundancy. I always tell people I am a political scientist, I chose to be in the civil service.
But it can be negative if you operate it in a wrong way, you are dealing with public service and resources and you will need what we called transparency and accountability in expenditure and these are records that are supposed to be beyond you. If people are charged with responsibility of public funds, you must have channel of communication and when people delay, that is when we say people are bureaucratic. Bureaucracy in itself is a good thing in the civil service because it enhances transparency and accountability and also helps to keep records for generations to come about what is done and not done. It is only here in Nigeria that we don’t respect archives and records. In Europe, they have archives. In Nigeria too, we have national archives where you can get what was written about certain things, the correspondences between the writer and the recipient, the colonial administrators. That is what we are talking about bureaucracy. It is very essential in civil service.
What about the issue of Minimum wage?
The labour joined the strike regarding the minimum wage at that time not because Katsina State was not paying but essentially because it was a national strike. When the issue of the minimum wage came up, the governor said he was going to implement it but that would be after the biometric capture of the civil service. I was part of the committee that did that biometric. I was Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance then. As soon as the biometric was done, he gave approval to pay the minimum wage in January 2011. As a matter of fact, we are the first in the country to have implemented the minimum wage in total of over N18,500 and something. We not only paid bonus but also arrears after the minimum wage issue. Also every 24th of every month, whether there is allocation from the Federal Government or not, every staffer of the government must be credited by their banks. That aside, we pay pensioners every month before paying regular staff.
What is the budget of the civil service every month for it to be able to do all that it has been doing?
The governor would be in a better position to answer this question. But I know that the state as led by the governor is operating a tight fiscal management. But regarding the wage bill of the state, it is not only the public service that takes the large chunk, there are medical workers included, the tertiary institutions workers are also part of it and you know that the salaries of lecturers are higher than civil servants, all these make up the salaries of civil service, all political office holders are included in the salaries we are talking about a state is about 26 years old now. I must also tell you that education from primary to tertiary level is free. Please find where that is possible in this country other than Katsina State. All the WAEC, NECO examinations fees are paid by the state government. The government is also doing a lot in terms job opportunities. Only recently the governor gave approval to employ about 2,000 teachers; this was after the National Institute of Education came and assessed teaching quality of the state and they found out that there is a gap of qualified teachers to employ, and the governor gave approval for 1,000 more teachers.
We have what we call medical students scheme, that is if you are admitted to read medicine in any university, the state government registers you and you are placed on salary, though, technically, you are not a civil servant but you will be placed on level 06, you will not be paid monthly since you are not a civil servant, these allowances would be collated and you will be paid twice a year, either in January and June or June and December. Reading medicine we all know can be very expensive, this action of government is just to stabilize the students and relieve the burden from parents. The only condition to this is that you sign a bond that on completion of your studies, you come down to the state to serve for two years, that is apart from houseman ship; thereafter, you can take your leave if you want to, but if you want to be retained, with all pleasure, you will.
Does that include non- indigenes?
Sorry, we don’t have non -indigenes in the state. All are Nigerians. That is what the governor does not want to hear. He hates it when you call someone a non- indigene. So everybody’s school fees are paid by the state government, whether you are from Sokoto, Kaduna, Ogun or Oyo, once you reside here in Katsina, you are qualified automatically for free education. We have also the free medical care. But this is from age zero to five years old. All aged ones in the society are cared for free. Ante natal care to delivery is free. There is nobody who goes to any of our hospitals for malaria treatment that is charged, it is free. I need to also tell you the welfare packages for civil servants in the state. The state government has constructed over 2,000 housing units, given to civil servants at subsidized rates of 40%. If you are a civil servant either at the state or local government, you will only deposit 10% of the subsidized house and the balance is spread to 15 years which will be deducted from your salary. If you are talking about those who are civil servants, there is room for such people as well. They also benefit from the 40% subsidy; they also pay 10% initial and complete payment within six months, that means within a year, you are given the grace to pay up. The revenue accruing from the sale of the houses is ploughed back to the sector to build more houses.
Paying of gratuity is a problem to a lot of states. How are you tackling this?
The pension administrators are at liberty to give you what they feel is necessary, either half or one third of your payment at the end your career but most people would prefer to be given their money in bulk. His Excellency approves payment of gratuities of over N700m to 455 retirees, which is being paid quarterly. As we speak, the state does not owe salaries or pensions. All those who have left the service three months back have collected their gratuities, except those ones who have just left, which, of course will be sorted out this quarter which is being assessed by the Audito General.
