May Day: Stop recruiting perm sec from outside...

The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has called on the federal government to stop recruiting Permanent Secretaries from outside the Civil Services, adding that If the political leaders feel some people possess “special skills” they should be engaged as advisers or assistants.

This was disclosed in a MAY DAY speech by the National President of the union, Comrade Quadri Olaleye, tagged “60 Years of Nationhood: Insecurity, Wage Poverty and the Future of Work in Nigeria”.

According to him, “It is wrong to extend the tenure of serving Permanent Secretaries after they have reached the statutory retirement age of 60 years or served for 35 years. It is against the Civil Service Rule.”

“Some Parastatals of the Federal Government are still being run or managed by their Directors-General and Chief Executives as slave camps. We can no longer bear the overzealousness of these individuals. The Federal Government must monitor their activities.”

“We demand that retired public servants be covered by the Healthcare Services of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). They should benefit from the Scheme because they were contributors before leaving the service. ”

“The stoppage of gratuity is affecting workers. It is unfair for companies to abruptly stop payment of gratuity without carrying the workers along. The Congress frowns at organizations that use the National Joint Industrial Council (NJIC) agreements reached with junior staff for the senior staff union.

They are two separate unions and should be treated as such.”

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He noted that, “We advocate reduction of food and drug prices to enable Nigerians who survived the corona virus pandemic to recuperate well.

“All existing Federal teaching / specialists hospitals should be upgraded and equipped with the state of the art medical equipment to meet the modern day standards and the new emerging disease conditions .

“We also appeal to government to set up standard state of the art hospitals in each of the six geo-political zones to ensure the pandemic does not consume more Nigerians needlessly.

This will create accessibility to all Nigerian. This way our politicians will find no use travelling abroad as health nationalism is becoming the order of the day.”