Civil servants hail government’s resolve to bridge salary difference in public sector

The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has commended the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HOS), Winifred Oyo-Ita, for initiating fresh move to bridge workers salary in the public service.

The commendation came on the heels of a statement credited to the HOS at a sensitisation workshop on the 2017-2020 Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan (FCSSIP), Abuja, to the effect that the emoluments of 80,000 Civil Servants who are the engine room of the government should be increased since currently they are the least paid in the public service.

A statement by the ASCSN National President, Bobboi Bala Kaigama and the Secretary-General, Alade Bashir Lawal, posited that out of more than 12 different salary structures in the public service that of the core Civil Service is the lowest even though the bulk of the government work is carried out by them. 

The union said: “Our demand was predicated on the fact that the current pay structure in operation in the Civil Service has become unrealistic and inadequate such that workers can no longer meet their basic needs, a scenario that is impacting negatively on their morale.”

Expressing hope that the statement of the HOS would galvanised the government to do the needful by beefing up the salaries of core civil servants to be at par with that of other segments of the Public Service, the union argued that there must equal pay for job of equal value since the employees concerned have similar or the same qualifications.

At the workshop, Oyo-Ita was reported to have said: “There is a misconception that almost the whole country has, as regards civil servants salaries vis-a-vis public servant salaries, now the public service is the entire gamut of organisations that source their funds from the federal treasury and their activities are guided by government operations.

”Noting that the public service includes military, paramilitary, parastatals, agencies and the core civil service, she said in the public service what an average public servant on level 16 for example earns is two and a half times what the director in the ministry earns, and that director is meant to be supervising the parastatal or agency under his ministry.

“The disparity between the parastatals and the civil servants in the ministries is so wide, but anytime we talk about these things people keep thinking that it is the entire public service we are talking about.

“So I believe as the Head of Service of the Federation, it is only fair for the stories of the silent minority to be brought out and that is what we are trying to do through the salary and welfare review of civil servants.”