*Photo: Gov AbdulRazaq*
The Kwara State Governor Mal Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Razaq has been commended on his decision to re-engage into the Public Service ‘the sunset teachers’ who were disengaged at the inception of the new administration in the state as part of palliatives to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal in the State.
An HR expert and Fellow of Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPM), Alh. Ibrahim Abdullahi made the commendation while reacting to the hardship facing Kwarans as a result of fuel subsidy withdrawal in the Country.
Alh. Abdullahi said such a gesture would henceforth ‘put food on the table’ for the affected families.
He however called on the governor not to limit recruitment into the state public service to ‘Sunset Teachers’ but to also extend the gesture to recruitment of jobless graduates in various disciplines, pointing out that the workforce of the
Kwara State Public Service presently thin due to the voluntary retirement of several officers of various categories in the State and Local Government service.
Alhaji Abdullahi Ibrahim who retired from Kwara State Public Service as a Director 15 years ago, maintained that without bringing fresh graduates into the State Public Service, it would be difficult for the Service to catch-up with current trends, pointing out that such recruitments has comnenced in some states in the federation, including Yobe and Borno States .
He said for several years, thousands of civil servants have retired and that only teachers and few medical personnel were recruited into the Service since the inception of this Administration in the State.
The Human Resources’ Management Expert also lamented the low-level of training and re-training of public servants in the State and appealed to the Governor to look into it as well as increment of monthly pensions of retired civil servants.
He however commended the governor for carrying along State Pensioners in the first palliatives approved for the state governors by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He urged him to review upwards, the monthly pension of senior citizens in the state, adding that the last review took place in 2012; as against the Labour Laws which makes such review mandatory every five years.