From Molly Kilete, Abuja
The Police Service Commission (PSC) has approved the payment of six months salaries for recruits of 2021/2022, who passed out of the police colleges and worked in different police commands and formations.
The PSC said the payment had become necessary given the untold hardship the police Constables were going through. It also said it took the decision in the interest of national security and the need to amicably resolve the lingering issues of recruitment between the commission and the Nigeria Police Force.
PSC Head, Public Relations and Information, Ikechukwu Ani, in a statement, further noted that the decision followed outcry and appeals from Nigerians that the 2021/2022 police recruits who are yet to be enrolled into the Federal Government’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and who had not received salaries, six months after they passed out from the police colleges and duly posted to police commands and formations for active police work, are not made victims of the face off between the commission and the Nigeria Police Force.
The statement said the commission’s approval for the enrolment of 1,007 recruited personnel into the Nigeria Police Force in 2021/2022 into the IPPIS payment platform, for the purposes of salaries and other emoluments, has been conveyed to the Accountant General of the Federation.
In the letter signed by the Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Commission, Dr. (Mrs) Ifeoma A. Anyanwutaku, and dated, May 5, 2023, the commission requested for “prompt and favourable response in activating and emplacing the necessary processes and procedures at ensuring that the police officers were immediately captured on the required payment platform and paid accordingly”.
The Commission’s Chairman, Dr. Solomon Arase, former Inspector General of Police, felt a sense of discomfiture over newspaper reports that the officers had since resorted to alms begging and other untidy acts to sustain themselves, and had moved immediately to resolve all pending and envisaged issues surrounding the matter.
Dr. Arase had announced, at a stakeholders meeting with civil society organisations, that the face off between the commission and the Nigeria Police Force would soon be over, to the benefit of both parties and the greater interest of the nation.