WORKERS SHUT PUBLIC COMPLAINTS COMMISSION OVER FAILURE TO IMPLEMENT NEW SALARY SCHEME

BY JOSEPH ADEIYE



The gates of the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) have been locked for weeks in an ongoing protest against the federal government’s failure to implement a new salary scheme at the commission and pay staff arrears owed.

Staff members of the PCC have told FIJ about the years of failure to implement the migration from the Consolidated Public Service Salary Structure (CONPSS) to the Consolidated Legislative Salary Structure (CONLESS) since 2021.

The PCC is the Nigerian government’s ombudsman body, tasked with investigating, reporting and helping to settle complaints against ministries, departments and agencies from Nigerian citizens. It describes itself as “an organ of the government set up to redress complaints lodged by aggrieved citizens or residents in Nigeria against administrative injustice”.

FIJ has learned that the executive and legislative arms of the federal government have ignored the PCC staff members’ calls to pay their remunerations for years, stalling and giving false promises.


A DAY’S WORK AT THE PCC

The PCC is supposed to be Nigeria’s foremost complaints desk, where Nigerians submit complaints about injustice perpetrated by government and public institutions.

PCC staff are expected to independently receive and investigate such complaints.

At no cost, it is within the scope of the PCC’s duties to recover refunds for Nigerians who have money trapped in the grasp of unresponsive companies. The PCC can also direct multinational organisations in Nigeria to compensate citizens seeking redress for wrongdoing.

More recent results of the PCC’s work include recovering N742,000, the last tranche of money paid for undelivered housing by Good Homes Development Company Limited, to one Peter Okafor.

Grace Sabo of Anguwan Rafin Zurfi in the Bauchi Local Government Area of Bauchi State told the PCC in May 2022 about the non-payment of death benefits for her late husband, Corporal I. Sabo of the Nigerian Police Force, who died on June 16, 2020, while in active service. The PCC said it recovered N1.6 million of Sabo’s benefits in February.

The PCC said it returned N1.5 million to disgruntled Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) workers in Osun State in February 2022 after a funds misappropriation case.

The work of the staff at the PCC ought to help the commission curtail the excesses leading to injustice in public institutions. This commission ought to work with a sense of independence and accountability, a high-ranking PCC staff member told this reporter.

PRESIDENCY OR NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ARRANGEMENT

At a point in its history, the PCC reported to the presidency, and the funds used to run the commission were released under the same conditions as ministries, departments and agencies working directly with the office of the president.

In a federal government document signed by Anyim Pius Anyim, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, in 2013, the PCC was moved to function under the jurisdiction of the National Assembly.

“This is to inform you that the Public Complaints Commission as enshrined in Section 315(5) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is now under the jurisdiction of the National Assembly,” the document reads in part.

In a federal government document signed by Anyim Pius Anyim, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, in 2013, the PCC was moved to function under the jurisdiction of the National Assembly.
Prior to that statement, the PCC had been functioning under the jurisdiction of the presidency.

“From the get-go, we were under the presidency. So they had to move us to the National Assembly because of the nature of the work we do. They said it was expected that we report to the National Assembly. This was around 2014,” Wofai Musa, a PCC staff member, told FIJ in February.

“As civil servants, we have different salary structures. The salary structure we were on was CONLESS, the Consolidated Legislative Salary Structure. Moving from under the administration of the presidency to the National Assembly, we expected a change in our salary structure.

“We have different unions representing government staff: an association, the Nigerian Civil Servants Union (NCSU) and PASAN. The PASAN was the one we moved to and their salary structure was CONLESS. We were supposed to benefit from that salary structure.”

PROMISE AND FAIL

On January 24, staff members locked Abimbola Ayo-Yusuf, the PCC’s Chief Commissioner, inside the commission office while protesting the non-payment of their arrears and CONLESS remuneration approved by the National Assembly.

The protests and lockdown of the commission’s office have persisted. Staff members told FIJ that they had been promised payments of owed arrears and CONLESS remunerations on multiple occasions only to be left hanging.

“Now, PASAN came into existence around 2019. We knew that we at PCC were meant to benefit from the CONLESS,” Musa told this reporter.

“Staff members across the different unions banded together and demanded fair access to CONLESS. So, we were paid in percentages. It was 12.5 percent in 2021. 12.5 percent of the payments came from our budget.

“Our commissioner said that the commission didn’t have the funds to cater for that. There were few funds to try, but the commission couldn’t pay the full 50 percent. We were made to understand that when a new budget was drafted, we would be reimbursed with the full percentage. We were supposed to be paid 50 percent of that remuneration.”

PCC staff members, under the aegis of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), the Nigerian Civil Service Union (NCSU) and the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN), have been protesting against the lack of implementation of CONLESS since 2022.

PASAN described the deplorable state of the PCC’s staff members in a letter to Godswill Akpabio, Nigeria’s Senate President, as “amongst the worst in Nigeria, owing to the fact that the workers haven’t received a dime from the 40% Peculiar salary increment enjoyed by all Federal Civil Servants and 35,000 palliatives for federal workers”.

“Also about 16 months CONLESS arrears and 3 years promotion arrears being owed the workers. Despite the above, the management of the commission in its insensitivity are victimising staff by transferring them far away from their place of work without pay as stipulated in the Public Service Rules,” said PASAN.

Musa also told this reporter that the PCC’s leadership did not condone official complaints against its administration.

“These people (the PCC leadership) are taking us to court instead of solving the issue at hand,” she told FIJ on Monday.

Two staff members who preferred not to be named told FIJ that the commission squandered their funds on expenses of lesser priority instead of paying arrears and owed allowances.

“We, members of the representative unions, had a meeting with the commissioner in November 2023 to ask why our complaints about owed arrears were ignored,” a member of PASAN working at the PCC told FIJ.

“Civil servants are often transferred from one state to another. It is standard practice that when staff members are transferred to a new location, the staff members involved in transfers are paid remunerations for 28 days. This is like paid leave allowance. During this period, the staff member goes home and prepares to relocate to their new station of employment. There are so many people who have been transferred within the PCC, but they have not got that remuneration.

“The commissioner showed that he had been following up on the issue with letters. So, we asked for a date to expect a resolution so that we the representatives could let the other PCC staff know. The leadership of the commission told the union leaders not to worry, and that we should expect our normal remunerations in January.

“If the commissioner is so well paid in millions at ease, why is it difficult to pay those who do most of the hard work their owed entitlements?”

UNRESPONSIVE BOSS?


Three PCC sources told FIJ that the staff members expected Ayo-Yusuf to help them quickly resolve the remuneration problems because he had close ties with the leadership of the National Assembly.

Ayo-Yusuf has, however, made more promises to resolve the remuneration challenge at the PCC. The commissioner still has no date for the implementation of his promises.

“… no budgetary approval was given to implement the same in the 2022 and 2023 appropriation acts,” Ayo-Yusuf told journalists in February.

“As the management was making efforts to analyse the (2024) budget and determine how to allocate funds to the relevant heads/sub-heads, the commission received a letter from the joint unions insisting on ‘full implementation of the approved 50 percent CONLESS and its peculiar allowance that is being paid to the staff of the National Assembly service which was different from the approval granted the commission by the NSIWC.'”

The National Salaries Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) informs the federal government on income, wage and salary matters.

Musa told FIJ that Ayo-Yusuf would rather PCC staff liaise endlessly with the NSIWC than the commissioner liaise on behalf of the staff.

Courtesy; Foundation For Investigative Journalism
Email: info@fij.ng