Friday, November 23, 2012

15 ex-DGs get benefits 24 years after retirement


Fifteen former director-generals in the Niger State civil service have cause to smile again 24 years after they were unceremoniously eased out of service as a result of the 1988 civil service reform.
The Niger State government has decided to revisit their cases and pay them their retirement benefits.
Under the review of the civil service rules in 1988, all permanent secretaries were converted to director-generals and were directed to retire with the government under which they served notwithstanding their length of service.
This was disclosed to journalists in Minna at the end of the state executive council meeting by the Head of Service, Alhaji Ibrahim Matane.
He said going through the files, the Niger State government recently discovered that the 15 affected director-generals had not put in the mandatory 35 years in service or attained the 60 years age limit needed for them to retire.
According to him, government has decided to restore the retirement benefits of the affected former civil servants in line with the administrations posture of recognising hard work and rewarding dedication to duty.
Matane further said that beginning from this month, the 15 affected former directors-general will start drawing their monthly pension put at N1.1 million for each of them.
He also appreciated the contributions of the affected people to the growth of the state civil service while urging serving workers to take the incident as a call for them to work harder as all their efforts will be rewarded.
The state executive council also changed the name of the former state Ministry of Solid Minerals to state Ministry of Mining and Mineral Resources releasing N55 million as its take-off grant.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Alhaji Bala Jida, said the grant was to enable the new ministry secure accommodation and recruit qualified staff to man the ministry.
He further said that the speedy takeoff of the ministry will contribute to the economic transformation of the state.

No comments: