Nasir El-Rufai, Kaduna State governor, has explained to President Muhammadu Buhari the need to downsize the workforce in the state.
El-Rufai said the state government will set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the industrial action embarked upon by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NCL) in Kaduna last month,
In a statement issued on Sunday by his Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Muyiwa Adekeye, the governor stated that the state government is hiring over 10,000 staff because rightsizing obliges it to continue to recruit teachers, doctors, nurses and other qualified staff to provide vital services.
He assured Buhari that the state government will not allow a repeat of the pains, economic losses and the restraints of freedom that the NLC strike inflicted on the people of Kaduna.
Commenting on the reconciliation meeting between the state government officials and the NLC, which held in Abuja on May 20, El-Rufai informed the President that the state executive council has already communicated to the minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, that it cannot approve the agreements reached at the meeting with the NLC regarding its rightsizing policy.
“It is trite that an MoU is not a legally-binding document. The content of the MoU shows that there is no congruence between the progressive aspirations of the Kaduna State Government and the misguided sense of entitlement of the NLC which does not even believe in equality amongst its own members”, the governor said.
“KDSG employees are serving with dedication in Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area, amidst all the challenges. Yet, the NLC describes the transfer of one KDSG employee to Birnin-Gwari LGA as victimisation, as if other staff who have been loyally serving in the same area are lesser humans or permanent victims. KDSG rejects this unfair denigration of the very people that the transferred employee claims to lead”.
The state government stated that “it is improper to describe the routine application of public service rules and labour regulations by a government as victimisation” and asked the ministry of Labour to reconsider permitting such slurs in documents prepared under its auspices.
“Union membership or accession to a leadership position in a union does not grant immunity to an employee for his/her actions and conduct or exempt them from compliance with the laws that govern everyone else.
“There are procedures that need to be followed to make a strike action legal, and the kind of conduct permissible during legitimate strike action is also bound by law. Lawful strike action still subjects strikers to the no-work, no-pay rule. How then can unlawful strike action be expected to be without consequences, as spelt out in the relevant laws and regulations?”
“It was notable that the NLC delegation was eager for the discourse not to dwell on their violations of laws prohibiting the disruption of essential services and their recourse to coercion and restraints to the freedom of citizens. But these are matters that cannot be ignored or swept under the carpet, since unlawful actions that have come to be accepted as part and parcel of strike action remain unlawful”, it also said.
The statement reiterates that “Kaduna State Government has not yet disengaged any state civil servant but has dispensed with the services of 99 political appointees so far.” Only the 23 local government councils and the agencies associated with the local government system such as SUBEB and the Primary Health Care Board have released staff”.
It further noted that, “rightsizing is about getting the optimal number of persons with the requisite skills to staff the public service,” the statement added that as it is releasing lesser skilled staff, the KDSG is engaged in continuous recruitment of teachers, doctors, nurses and other health workers to provide vital services for citizens. “More than 10,000 such workers, including 7,600 secondary school teachers are being injected into the public service”.
The statement explained that its commitment to fair assessment of the credentials of all officers shows in the painstaking approach to the rightsizing exercise for state civil servants. It said that it is only after the completion of the verification process that KDSG will “release any civil servant that is confirmed not to possess the minimum qualifications prescribed in 2017 as one of the outcomes of the state’s Public Service Revitalization and Renewal Programme”.
The statement appealed “for the continued patience and understanding of all citizens as steps are being taken for the fair conclusion of this exercise.”
