Fika panel submits report, seeks cut in top civil servants’ perks

• Says allowances take N1.031tr out of N1.126tr salary vote
• Presidential flood committee presents final findings
WITH the submission of the report of the Adamu Fika-led Presidential Committee on the review of the reform processes in the nation’s public service Monday, huge allowances being paid to top civil servants may be stopped.
The report submission exclusively reported by The Guardian Monday recommended that only directors that have spent a number of years on general administration should be made permanent secretaries.
But Fika refused to answer questions from journalists after presenting the report that among other contending issues questions the rationale behind the payment N1.031 trillion in allowances to top civil servants.
The Presidential Technical Committee on Flood Impact Assessment also submitted its final report yesterday, stating that 90 per cent of their recommendations contained in the final report, were also included in the interim report submitted last year and are already implemented.
While giving the report to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Anyim Pius Anyim, the Chairman of the committee and Minister of Environment Hajia Hadiza Mailafiya, said that data available showed that “363 lives where lost in the flood nationwide…while two million people where displaced.”
The Fika report also states: “Revenue mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) fixed and allowed the gross amount for salaries and allowances to rise to N1.126 trillion. Of this, salaries took a mere N94.56 billion, while allowances gulped the whole N1.031.65 trillion…
“It is certainly not morally defensible from the perspective of social justice or any known moral criterion that such a huge sum of public funds is consumed by an infinitesimal fraction of the people.”
Both reports received by the SGF on behalf of the President were in line with the transformational policies of the Jonathan administration. Anyim said the Federal Government had always placed premium on quality service delivery that would facilitate the development of Nigeria.
On the recommendation that “the tenure policy in the public service should be abrogated”, the committee stated that, “the policy was introduced without any impact assessment study carried out, and the current tenure policy violates the rights of those affected to serve in accordance with their terms of engagement.”
Fika said the committee also found that “the tenure policy had depleted and thus deprived the service of some of the most competent and experienced hands, …has introduced a destabilizing and rapid turnover of senior officers in the service.”
The report also read in part: “We recommend that only directors who have spent a minimum of our years on schedule of general administration of personnel management should be eligible for consideration for appointment as permanent secretary.”
Earlier, the Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, expressed optimism that the flood disaster that submerged roads would not happen again because of the projects and efforts put in place by the ministry to raise the roads to a certain level that the water could not overtake them again.
The minister, however, lamented the attitude of Nigerians to good hygiene and environmental sanitation. He appealed that Nigerians must cultivate attitude change in waste disposal, and the building of flood plains and blocking waterways indiscriminately.
The Fika committee also denied being   aware of two reports that had been printed.  “We were only aware that some members had contemplated a minority report. It was only when members came for a meeting that it was disclosed that a minority report had been printed even though no one accepted responsibility in that respect,” the committee said.
It also implored the Federal Government to punish one Cyril Ofili for taking actions that were not in line with extant regulations of the public service. Ofili’s offence, it was alleged, was that he took the minority report to the SGF without the chairman of the committee’s consent or knowledge. It stated that he deliberately misled the SGF in his bias and clear violation of evident neutrality as demanded by the ethics of the service, but aligned himself with a group “if at all such groupings existed.”