Peoples Daily

• FG to slash overhead vote by N400 bn
  
• Fear grips federal workers

By Richard Ihediwa & Miriam Humbe

Mass sack  looms in the federal civil service following the decision by the Federal Government to prune down its recurrent spending in the 2012 fiscal year.
This is coming against the backdrop of the prevalent cash flow problem in the country as well as the insistence by the National Assembly that the size of the federal bureaucracy is over bloated and as such should be pruned down to accommodate more resources for developmental projects.
Already fear has gripped federal workers as the Ministry of Finance has perfected plans to cut the overhead votes in the 2012 budget by N400 billion, a decision which might be followed by a downward review of the federal workforce.
The Senate in endorsing the 2012-2015 Medium-Term and Fiscal Framework (MTFF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) submitted to it by President Goodluck Jonathan, recommended that government should shed the weight of its workforce in 2012.
“The civil service should be restructured to enhance productivity and the fiscal deficit ratios of 2.7 percent, 2 percent, 1.5 percent and 1.5 percent for 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively, be adopted,” the Senate approved last week.
Apparently faced by serious cash flow problems, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala said there are plans to yank off N400 billion from the recurrent budget adding that such has become imperative so as to get additional funds for projects.
The Minister, who stated this when she appeared before the Senate Committee on Appropriation recently, said there was a cash flow problem adding that the Federal Government is now considering borrowing about N794 billion to finance the deficit in the 2012 budget.
In what appeared to be an announcement of the commencement of an austere regime, the minister said all Nigerians must be willing to make sacrifices, though she did not come out clear on how the slash in the overhead will affect the size of the workforce.
She also challenged the National Assembly to further cut its own overhead though the legislature had earlier slashed its budget by 40 percent.
“We need to make that sacrifice. At the minimum, we need to find N370 billion, almost N400 billion so as to bring down the deficit to a manageable level.
“We still need to find more cuts. As the Executive cuts its own, we hope that the National Assembly will still cut its own in order to help us. We are going to look at the statutory transfers, look at Judiciary, INEC and others; whoever we can negotiate with to help us out this year should do so”, she said.
Fears that a drastic measure could be taken in the line of rightsizing of the workforce heightened following apprehensions that the Federal Government failed to achieve the promise by President Jonathan to pay all workers by January, 20 due to cash flow problems.
This is in addition to moves to scrap or merge some agencies of government, which many workers now feel from part of the plans to reduce the workforce. It was gathered that the merger plan may be accompanied with a staff audit and rightsizing.
As at the close of work yesterday, most civil servants have not received their January salaries even as many agencies have not started implementing the N18,000 new minimum wage.
Categories of workers that might be affected if government resolve to take the option of rightsizing as against reduction in wages, include those who have bad records or disciplinary issues, those who have reached their bars as well as those who have not upgraded their educational qualifications for a long time.
Others who could be affected include workers who were smuggled into the service by politicians without passing through the prescribed process.
These include those imposed on the system by federal lawmakers and ministers, who used the influence of their offices to get their relations and cronies into the service without passing through due process.
Though efforts to reach some top officials at the Office of the Head of Service did not yield any result, an official at that office confirmed that there are moves to restructure the service but did not give details on how.

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