Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winnifred Oyo-Ita, has approved the deployment of 269 civil servants in the directorate cadre and other categories under the pool of her office.
The deployments were contained in a circular dated June 4, 2018 with reference number HCSF/CMO/EM/Vol.3/241/154.
The circular, a copy of which was sighted by our correspondent, did not indicate any other reason for the mass deployment apart from the main reason of filling vacancies.
Those affected are all between Grade Levels 10 and 17.
Many of the affected senior civil servants were posted out of their former places while some others who were recently promoted were also assigned new offices.
Almost all ministries were affected in the exercise.
The circular was addressed to the Chief of Staff to the President, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Vice-President, Chief Justice of Nigeria, all ministers and ministers of state, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Permanent Secretaries, service chiefs and Inspector-General of Police, Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria as well as heads of government agencies and extra ministerial department.
The list showed that 79 directors were affected by the circular.
While many of the directors were deployed to fill vacancies, some were deployed to understudy some officials who are retiring soon.
A total of 113 deputy directors were also included in the list.
Majority of the deputy directors were deployed to fill vacancies while a few of them were saddled with the responsibilities is serving as deputies to some officials.
A total of 55 assistant directors were also deployed, according to the circular.
Most of them were also deployed to fill vacancies.
Other categories of civil servants affected by the deployment are Chief Admni Officers, Chief Programme Officers, Chief Confidential Secretaries, Assistant Chief Admni Officers, Assistant Chief Programmes Analysts, Principal Admin Officers and Principal Confidential Secretaries among others.
Just before the mass deployment, Daily Sun investigations had revealed that having scaled through the promotional examination which saw only 140 out of over 290 Deputy Directors successful in the Federal Civil Service, some of them offered bribed to be posted to “juicy ministries”.
Daily Sun findings revealed, that some directors were paying between N300,000 and N500,000 to be posted to ministries perceived to be juicy like finance, agriculture, water resources, transport, Federal Ministry of Territory, power, works and housing, ecological fund office, petroleum among others.
There are departments in ministries outside Accounts and procurement that are equally juicy but under the Administration and the directors are also eyeing those places. An example of those departments are, Maritime department in Transport ministry linked with Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) and Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and Rail transport department, that are manned by Admin Directors.
An official who pleaded for anonymity had blamed the development on the delay by the Office of the Head of Service the Federation to effect the postings as soon as the result of the promotion was announced.
The source told our reporter that “Well, its not new in the service to see Directors giving bribe to be posted to juicy ministries, particularly Department of Finance and Accounts (DFAs) and Procurements. The most lucrative postings now are DFAs and Procurement.”
Another personnel added, “It is not surprising it is a reoccurring decimal. It is what you call in the media parlance, stale news.”
The source added that some pay as much as N1 million to influence posting, many of whom are those retiring within the year.
The source state, “There was a petition as regards the recently conducted promotional exams and it bothers on the allegations that many in desperation paid to influence the result in their favour as they have less than a year in office and might not be opportune to retake the examinations.”
When contacted to react to the development, the Director of Communications, Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, Olawunmi Ogunmosunle, pleaded for time to get the true position and get back to our reporter.
The request for reaction was made on March 7th, via a text message and a repeat on March 8th. She assured that the Head of Service will respond but with a tight a schedule which she has no control over, she could not guarantee when that will be.
The request was again made on March 14th, but until the mass deployment of senior civil servants, she never responded to enquirers to get the input of the service for balance.
