The Borno State Government has earmarked N88.5 million for the training and retraining of 1,050 workers in the civil service. The training of civil servants will soon commence in the state and extend to December, 2021.
These were made known at the weekend by the Head of Service (HoS), Simon Malgwi at the Musa Usman Secretariat complex, Maiduguri, the state capital. He said that the training has become inevitable; as a lot of workers that served for over 20 years did not benefit from training and re-training to improve service delivery. According to him, this development would not auger well under the present administration’s move to sanitize the civil service. He noted that the workers have never benefitted from any capacity building throughout their civil service careers.
“During the last State Executive Council (SEC) meeting chaired by the Governor, I presented a memo and N88.5 million was approved for the training of 1,050 civil servants from now to December, 2021,” he said. He said that Borno state government was the first among other states to implement the N30, 000 minimum wage.
Besides the payments of minimum wage, a N12 billion loan from Zenith Bank was borrowed to settle retired workers’ gratuities and pension at state and council levels. “Even before the inception of Zulum’s administration, the state government has been paying salaries as and at when due,” he said, noting that it has become a benchmark not only in the state, but across the country. He added that the Governor also approved automatic migration from salary to pension, whereby workers get enrolled into pension immediately they retire from servive.
He said this is addition to the approval of N100 million a month for the payments of workers gratuities and pensions. Zulum also gave a node for automatic migration from salary to pension, whereby civil servants get enrolled into pension immediately they retire from service. Continuing, he added: “This is in addition to Government’s approval for the sum of N100 million every month for the payments of workers gratuities and pensions. “The state government prior to the borrowing of N12 billion from Zenith Bank, released N2 billion which was used in payment of low cadre workers, in which 50% of their entitlements were paid.”
He said that when Zulum pledged to source for N12 billion loan, many believed that it was one of those political gimmicks. According to him, as an unusual and unconventional politician, the Governor does not believe in unfulfilled promises to the electorates. He said the payments of gratuities and pension have restored the livelihoods of retired workers, including the reactivation of local economy. He said that before the payments; many of the pensioners lost hope of being paid since their retirements. On the rehabilitated secretariat complex, he said: “The Musa Usman Secretariat complex was in a poor state of dilapidation for over three decades.
“But the state government renovated all the office complexes and other structures in the secretariat. “The offices of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) at the Secretariat are now fully equipped and furnished with civil servants’ working tools,” noting that the renovations of the complex has also improved the engine room of governance and accountability to the people. “There is no excuse of any civil servant to come to office late, close early, be lazy or absent from work,” he said.
