[Nigeria] Concerns over 17,000 civil servants delisted from government payroll

In Nigeria, around 17,000 federal civil servants who failed to comply with a verification exercise introduced by the Federal Government have been delisted from its payroll, The Guardian reports.

The affected workers have expressed anxiety as their salaries continue to be withheld by the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

Responding to the move Tommy Okon - President of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) - reportedly urged the affected employees to remain calm, promising that measures were in place to address the situation.

He chastised workers for ignoring government directives for five years and stated that the Head of Service of the Federation (HoSF), Dr Yemi Esan, had extended the exercise by a week to enable genuine employees erroneously omitted from the IPPIS portal, to forward their documents for updating.

Mr Okon said, “We called your attention to what we heard or information at our disposal just a few days ago. We received information that over 17,000 workers in the core civil service did not carry out the online verification, which was done by the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation.

“Quickly we swung into action to interface with the government through the HoSF and by that singular act, there was the need for us to talk to our members, and that informed the reasons, because we have seen a lot of apprehension from our members, receiving several phone calls, then we also looked at the timing, because of the social economic challenges.

“We went deep into the document, where we also realised that even in some government agencies, we realised that names of PAs, SAs and some ministers were included in the IPPIS portal, whereas those people were political office holders in their rights in various regimes.”

Commenting on recourse available to the affected workers, the ASCSN president said a committee had been constituted in the office of the HoSF to handle related cases.

He called those with genuine complaints, who had completed online verification, to submit a scanned copy of their document to the provided email address.

Mr Okon did, however, add that the one-week deadline given by the HoSF to fully comply with the directive was rather too short. He urged the government to help with the situation by extending the grace period.

Source: The Guardian

(Quotes via original reporting)

In Nigeria, around 17,000 federal civil servants who failed to comply with a verification exercise introduced by the Federal Government have been delisted from its payroll, The Guardian reports.

The affected workers have expressed anxiety as their salaries continue to be withheld by the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

Responding to the move Tommy Okon - President of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) - reportedly urged the affected employees to remain calm, promising that measures were in place to address the situation.

He chastised workers for ignoring government directives for five years and stated that the Head of Service of the Federation (HoSF), Dr Yemi Esan, had extended the exercise by a week to enable genuine employees erroneously omitted from the IPPIS portal, to forward their documents for updating.

Mr Okon said, “We called your attention to what we heard or information at our disposal just a few days ago. We received information that over 17,000 workers in the core civil service did not carry out the online verification, which was done by the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation.

“Quickly we swung into action to interface with the government through the HoSF and by that singular act, there was the need for us to talk to our members, and that informed the reasons, because we have seen a lot of apprehension from our members, receiving several phone calls, then we also looked at the timing, because of the social economic challenges.

“We went deep into the document, where we also realised that even in some government agencies, we realised that names of PAs, SAs and some ministers were included in the IPPIS portal, whereas those people were political office holders in their rights in various regimes.”

Commenting on recourse available to the affected workers, the ASCSN president said a committee had been constituted in the office of the HoSF to handle related cases.

He called those with genuine complaints, who had completed online verification, to submit a scanned copy of their document to the provided email address.

Mr Okon did, however, add that the one-week deadline given by the HoSF to fully comply with the directive was rather too short. He urged the government to help with the situation by extending the grace period.

Source: The Guardian

(Quotes via original reporting)