Oyo State Government has revealed that it would offset the promotion arrears of its workforce that have been stagnated for four years, saying that there would be no more disparity in elevation of workers in the state.
The Chairman Oyo State Civil Service Commission, Alhaji Kamorudeen Abiola Aderibigbe, stated this over the weekend while speaking with newsmen on the preparation for the training exercise for Directors of Administration, Directors of Personnel and Directors of Finance in the state civil service towards conducting a hitch-free promotion exercise for the workers.
Aderibigbe hinted that the decision of the state governor, Engr. Seyi Makinde to offset the arrears of promotion was in conformity with the administration’s welfarism policy and the realisation that the workers have laboured for the said period without being elevated as stated in the civil service code.
The Chairman added that Governor Makinde has directed that there should be no case of any worker being owed promotion by the end of his first term, which necessitated the drive towards offsetting the inherited promotion arrears.
“For the 35years I have spent in civil service, I have never seen a governor that has been so magnanimous as Governor Seyi Makinde, conducting four years promotion at a go is not an easy thing. He has sacrificed so much for the civil and public servants, because they form the bulk of the economy of the state,
“After this exercise, there won’t be arrears of promotion any longer. You know we are going to be due for 2017 to 2020, and by the end of this year. All MDAs must have gotten their data corrected so that as early as 2022, we will be doing the 2021 promotion. So, this government is working on not leaving any arrears of promotion at the expiration of its first four years in office so that when the governor comes in for the second term, it will be a smooth ride for the workers in terms of their elevation at work.
“We are trying to prepare for the exercise. We are going to train all directors of administration, directors of personnel and directors of finance on the promotion exercise because it will involve those three offices. There are some Ministries with directors of admin and directors of finance and admin. There are some with directors of administration and directors of personnel, where we have the three, they will all attend the training to sensitize them on the need for uniformity in the way the promotion exercise will be done.
The training is about sensitizing those who will be involved in the promotion exercise. You know there are variables that will determine the promotion eligibility of every individual, right from APER form, including the number of year of the person on the grade level and the scheme of vacancy in the estimate. All these will have to be taken into consideration. So, those teams will be trained so that all the MDAs will be on the same page. They will follow the civil service rules such that there will not be any overlapping and so that after the exercise, there will not be complaints here and there
“All the MDAs have conducted the exercise. Their report will come to the civil service commission where we will ratify whatever they bring for us and we want everything to be error-free. That is why we are having this training exercise. We have sent our roaster to all MDAs and we expect that by the 12th of March, 2021, all reports from these MDAs would have come in. The Commission will now sit on the report of the exercise and ratify whatever was submitted, depending whether it was perfectly done. If it is not perfect, we will correct it.
Kamorudeen went further to say that the governor has declared in his media chat over the weekend that there would be the post of Tutor-General in the state teaching service under the Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM) and the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), which would have equivalent position with a Permanent Secretary in the state civil service. With this development, workers in the state service now have the chance to be elevated to level seventeen before retirement.
