ILORIN—Following the heat
generated by the call of the
Governor of Central Bank of
Nigeria, CBN, Mallam Lamido Sanusi on the Federal
Government to sack half of its
workforce, the Minister of
Labour and Productivity, Chief
Chukwuemeka Wogu, yesterday,
assured that no worker would lose his job as the government
was even desirous of creating
more jobs for Nigerians. Sanusi in a paper he presented at
the 2nd Annual Capital Market
Committee Retreat in Warri, Delta
State, had stressed the need to
prune membership of the
National Assembly as well as the number of states and local
governments in the country,
among others.
The Labour Minister who spoke
in Ilorin at the 8th National
Labour Relations Summit and
Fellowship Award held at the
Michael Imodu National Institute
for Labour Studies(MINILS), said rather than sack workers, the
government has already set up
job creation committee that
would commence work next week
on how to create more jobs in all
sectors of the economy to achieve more success on the
transformational agenda of the
President Goodluck Jonathan
administration. According to him, “no worker will
be sacked. Nobody should be
afraid, the government is
desirous of creating more jobs
for Nigerians”. He noted that,”though job
creation is more of private
sector activities, but the federal
government has created an
enabling environment for private
sector to thrive. The government has also made a special effort on
agriculture, power, ICT, tourism
and recently SURE-P programme
of the government in its efforts
to provide jobs for Nigerians”. Sanusi, economist of political turbulence — Reps Meanwhile, members of the House
of Representatives, yesterday,
hit back at Sanusi, describing him
as an economist of political
turbulence over his call for a 50
per cent cut in the nation’s civil service. Reacting to the issues raised by
the CBN boss at a press briefing,
Deputy Chairman of the House of
Representatives Committee on
Media and Public Affairs, Mr
Victor Ogene described Sanusi as “an economist with a bias for
creating political turbulence,”
who had also not succeeded in
pushing through, any of his
controversial policies. The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala was also not
spared over her ministry’s
inability to cash-back the
balance of N300 billion of the
capital allocation in the 2012 budget to government Ministries,
Departments and Agencies (MDAs)
one month after promising to do
so. He said he did not know Sanusi to
be a political economist, adding
that “the Nigerian Labour
Congress (NLC) had succinctly
replied the CBN Governor over
the controversial comments”. He explained that “it was ironical
for him to make such
recommendations when there
have been astronomical increase
in the workforce of the CBN since
he assumed office. For me, I will say physician heal thyself,” the
lawmaker noted. He stressed that “checks had
revealed that before Sanusi was
appointed CBN Governor, its
workforce was 5,022 but had
risen to 6,015 since he assumed
office”, adding that there have been reported cases of acrimony
in the bank due to unfair
promotion of personnel during
his tenure. He argued that the CBN had an
annual expenditure profile of
about N300 billion and that
Sanusi had never deemed it fit to
subject such to public scrutiny
as a mark of accountability. “What solution has he proffered
as an economist? How can he
recommend a 50 per cent
reduction in the civil service when
we are talking of rising
unemployment and high level of insecurity? As an economist, I
think he should proffer
something that would grow the
economy instead,” the lawmaker
added. While expressing optimism that
the 2013 budget would be
passed before the House
proceeds on Christmas recess,
Ogene disclosed that it was,
however, still worried over the releases of capital funds to the
MDAs. He said the practice of
“anticipatory releases” was not
acceptable to the House, as much
can still be done before the year
ends if the fourth quarter
releases were cash-backed early enough. Facts available were that only
about 75 per cent of N1.3 trillion
Capital component of the 2012
Appropriation had been
accessed by MDAs, just with a
month to the end of the year”. LCCI, others react Reacting to Sanusi’s comment, the
Regional Managing Partner for
West Africa, Ernst &Young (EY),
Mr. Henry Egbiki, said: All I can say
is that government can reduce
recurrent expenditure through blocking of leakages.” Director General, Lagos Chamber
of Commerce and Industry
(LCCI), Muda Yusuf said: “The
chamber is not in support of the
Sanusi’s call to cut government
work force by half, and that will be too drastic an action to take.
The social implication will be
profound. But the principle of
cutting down on cost of
governance is good. Personnel
cost is only one of the many components of this cost. The
approach should therefore be
holistic.” In his reaction, Managing
Director of Linkage Assurance
Plc, Mr. Gus Wiggle said: “A
situation whereby state
governments use up about 70 per
cent of their state allocation to pay salaries of civil servants, is
not ideal, however, the economy
of the country is not strong
enough to withstand the sack of
about 50 per cent of the
workforce.”
www.vanguardngr.com/2012/11/we-wont-sack-civil-servants-says-fg/

As much as I respect SLS,somethimes the way he reasons gives me the impression he was not anywhere close to being the best man for the job.

Instead of him to sit down with Iweala and think of other alternatives that will create jobs,he spewing shi.t

True Talk.