NEMA carpets staff members over frivolous allegations

The management of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has carpeted its staff members for embarking on industrial actions over what it described as frivolous allegations.

The local branch of the Association of Senior Civil Servant of Nigeria (ASCSN) shut down NEMA’s headquarters last week without any prior notice to the management before the action was taken.

NEMA’s head of Press Unit, Sani Datti, in a statement issued in Abuja, said the reasons for ASCSN’s action were later discovered to have arisen from issues related to operations of vehicles and the agency’s aircrafts and some that have already been addressed during the industrial action embarked upon by the association in September last year.

He said all parties endorsed the agreement between the Management of NEMA and ASCSN, witnessed by Ministry of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chri Ngige.

These, he said, included payment of DTAs’ and other claims and all outstanding Overtime Allowances since 2015, which predated the appointment of the present Director General had been settled since last year.

“The payment of DTAs and other claims, which have accrued since 2015 are being released in batches, and considerable progress have been made on them,” he said.

On the renewal of Group Life Insurance, NEMA said seeking of no objection from BPP, Advert, pre-qualification, technical and financial tendering, evaluation and approvals have since been approved.

Datti added that the staff annual training for 2017 have been concluded successfully while the 2018 training schedule have been approved by the management and implementation has commenced.

Many staff have so far completed their 2018 annual training,” he said.

He noted that the Vice Chairman and Treasurer of ASCSN had also been redeployed to headquarters immediately after the signing of the agreement last year, while the newly elected unit treasurer who was in Lagos has also been redeployed to headquarters.

Datti said on Women Separated from their Families, the management had responded to all redeployment requests by married women at the agency.

On promotion, he said the Department of Human Resources Management had concluded preparations, briefs and other related cases, such as conversion, upgrading and confirmation, among others.

“To this end, the DG has been intimated on the criteria and process of the exercise. Approval cost implication and accreditation of eligible officers has been given and will commence in earnest. This will follow immediately with the fixing of the examination date.”