Tag: ONDO

One of the most important, if not the main ingredient for a strong relationship is trust. The belief by both parties, most especially the one to whom much was given and therefore much was expected could be trusted both in words and deeds would make the relationship look like it was made in heaven. With trust, both parties in the relationship would have joyful living and authentic happiness. There’s nothing as reassuring that also spurs reciprocity from the other party as knowing that the one whose shoulder the strength and well-being of the relationship rests will do what he says he will do. So, when now Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) was sworn in on Thursday, February 24, as the governor of Ondo State, he knew, ab initio, that he has entered into a relationship with the people of his state. A few days after his inauguration, governor Akeredolu made what can be described as a policy statement that he would not take his salary until state workers who are owed several months in salary arrears have all been paid. In his resolve to end an otherwise embarrassing situation, Arakunrin Akeredolu immediately put the machineries in motion towards the fulfilment of his promise to clear the salary backlog. After only two months since assumption of office, state workers have received the equivalent of four months salaries.

Determined to also resurrect the joy and happiness that had eluded them for so long during festive periods, Akeredolu also paid the state’s civil servants in lieu of this year’s Easter celebration so that the Christian faithful among them could celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As expected of politicians, Akeredolu did not promise the electorates heaven and earth, but rather told them to hold him responsible if he failed to do what he said he would do.

While one cannot be accused of flagrant exaggeration that it is criminal of an employer to owe his workers their salaries for several months while his shop still remains open for business without disengaging them or temporarily setting aside the services of some of them until his financial situation improves – as Mimiko did for seven months – it must also be stressed that Akeredolu is at such a critical juncture to create a new administrative order for the state civil service not only to put a permanent end to this embarrassing state’s irresponsibility of owing its workers their legitimate wages, but also for the sake of his policies and programmes which must succeed.

But before one makes some suggestions as to how this new administrative order can emerge, we must first come to terms with what the state civil service (like its counterparts in other states) is, and what it is not. The state civil service is typically where the more powerful among the politicians ‘dump’ their relatives and acolytes in the name of creating employment for them. Merit has no place there in recruitment and promotion. It is a repository for all manners of people that are probably mostly ill-suited for the jobs they’ve been given either by way of proper academic qualification and/or experience.

What’s more, some of the jobs for which they’re employed may even be unnecessary, if not outdated in the first place. For instance, the civil service is where people are still being employed for the sole purpose of delivering intra-departmental and inter-ministerial correspondences when technology has made that job completely obsolete. The civil service is also where the most virulent corruption strain – far worse and crippling than the kind that thrives in the private sector – are incubated and nurtured. It is a Neanderthal in a technology-driven 21st century workplace where ‘ghost’ workers are not only recurring decimals, but gets their emoluments first before the real, living workers. These are the “known knowns” of the civil service.

The civil service, as it’s presently configured, is simply a square administrative peg that cannot effectively fit into Akeredolu’s round hole of those government’s programmes and policies with any appreciable outcomes. It, therefore, must be reconfigured and be made compact if the government must succeed. And the time is now. Governor Akeredolu must re-create the largely lethargic and archaic state civil service in his own image in accordance with his Platforms for Change programmes with a good dose of technology as its main operating system without any reservations or apologies. There’s no better time than now to communicate this intention to the stakeholders that the reform of the civil service is a necessary condition not only for the success of this administration that the people expects so much from, but also to save the state bureaucracy from itself. It’s an important priority in which some of its outcomes should be felt in the first 100 days of the administration. And there are several options available to choose from.

The administration’s first intervention in this restructuring effort – it seems to me – would be to order a comprehensive forensic audit in order to eliminate the recurrent incidents of ghost workers from its payroll once and for all. Once this forensic audit is completed and ghost workers are weeded out, laws that prohibit ghost workers in the state payroll system must be enacted by acts of the state House of Assembly whereby anyone found culpable of injecting ghost workers into the state workforce would not only lose his position, but also forfeits all his material assets to the state regardless of the legitimate acquisition of those assets. The perennial presence of ghost workers in the state’s payroll system is a testament that there’s probably a strong and influential cabal in the state workforce acting with reckless impunity by constantly compromising the system.

Even with the elimination of virtually all the ghost workers, the state’s recurrent expenditures on salaries and allowances are more likely to be higher relative to its outlay on capital expenditures. This is where the next step of the reform process should kick in. Since most of the state workers have been neglected for so long, having not been sufficiently trained and retrained to understand, let alone possess the capability to drive the modern processes for a 21st century bureaucracy, disengaging some of them is, truly, in their best interests. Aside from those that technology has made their jobs to be redundant, if not obsolete that should be disengaged forthwith, the state government should engage in what is known as “buy out” of those public workers with a few more years before their retirement once their jobs are deemed as no longer critically important to the effectiveness and efficiency of the civil service.

For instance, state workers who has, say, five more years before their retirement can be encouraged to retire with incentives that involves being paid upfront their salaries for, say, two years at one fell swoop once they’re willing to forfeit the remaining three years (or whatever the terms of agreement) into their retirement. This arrangement would no doubt be mutually beneficial for both the workers and the government. In an environment such as ours that stifles creativity, self-expression and wealth creation, such workers can ‘rediscover’ themselves with such monies which can be utilized for entrepreneurial activities, having been freed from jobs that no longer add value or self-satisfaction.

Now that agriculture will take the front seat in the governor’s sustainable development strategy with his declaration of a state of emergency in cocoa production, the people that took this special early retirement package can be given the right of first refusal to be employed as, say, Agricultural Field Officers whose function – after they’ve been retrained – is to interface with state farmers who are largely illiterates on how to use new farming techniques to produce quality and higher farm yields, among other functions. These are some of the roads less travelled that Akeredolu should take in creating a new Sunshine state.

• Odere is a media practitioner. He can be reached at femiodere@gmail.com