By Henry Umahi
These are certainly happy times for civil servants in Imo State. Last week, Governor Hope Uzodimma again approved the payment of 13th month salary to all civil servants in the state as they prepared for this year’s Christmas and New Year celebrations.
Last year, Uzodimma also paid the civil servants 13th month salary. Since the creation of Imo State no other governor had given 13th month salary as Christmas bonus in the state.
Apart from 13th month salary, Uzodimma had earlier directed that civil servants who who were due for promotion but suffered stagnation in the hands of past governments should be immediately elevated and their new pay effected. The monetary largesse announced at the state Executive Council meeting was not all as the governor also said that the workers would be given rice and other food items to enable them enjoy the season fully.
According to the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Chief Declan Emelumba, the distribution of the food items was to take place at the state secretariat immediately and described the gesture as a “practical demonstration of the principle of Shared Prosperity” by the Governor Uzodimma’s administration.
He equally said that the Council applauded the governor for the benevolence, saying: “Despite the daunting challenges faced by the governor from detractors, he still has the political will and courage to continue to carry out gigantic projects and people-oriented governance to Imo people, hence the Council gave rousing ovation and vote of confidence.”
Indeed, Uzodimma recognises that the public service is the engine room of every government because it is the instrument for the implementation of policies and programmes. Unfortunately for Imo State, the public service was at its lowest ebb when Uzodimma mounted the saddle. He was confronted with the challenges of non-payment of salaries, sagged morale, deprivations, indiscipline, degraded working environment and paucity/total lack of basic materials, among others.
Uzodimma took immediate steps to address these anomalies by first raising the morale of the workforce. Twenty-two Innoson Caris-brand saloon cars were purchased and distributed to all permanent secretaries; 30 Hyundai buses were deployed to convey workers from their homes to the Secretariat and other work places under the Staff Mass Transit Scheme, and for the first time since the creation of Imo State, workers received 13th month salary as Christmas bonus along with bags of rice for two consecutive years.
To address the cankerworm of corruption which had eaten so deep into the system as evidenced by padding of workers’ salaries and pensions as well as revenue leakages, among others, Uzodimma moved fast to restore sanity by embarking on biometric verifications which enabled the capture of relevant data of personnel and processes.
This led to automation of the payroll system including the holistic introduction of the Treasury Single Account (TSA). Today, salaries are promptly paid to all workers alongside pensioners.
A retiree, Elder Pat Njoku, said: “It gladdens the heart that the pains which retiring/retired public servants used to experience has become a thing of the past with the automatic cut- over from salary to pension now in place.
“The practice now is that as one retires from service, he/she is automatically captured into the pension payroll scheme thus eliminating the gnashing of teeth/excruciating pains inflicted by previous administrations.The internal revenue mechanism is now fully automated with a new- generation IT compliant staff who can meet up with modern day fiscal transaction challenges.”
It was gathered that the Imo State Internal Revenue Service (IIRS) has been re-positioned to maximally harvest the internal revenue sources of the state in a seamless, corruption-free manner.
According to Emelumba, kudos must be given to Uzodimma for the courage he displayed to restore sanity in the financial regime of the public service by embarking on a comprehensive automation process. Elelumba said: “He was aware of the delays that go with such processes, but it was his conviction, and rightly too, that getting the fiscal system right through automation was the sine qua non in the fight to eliminate the humongous corruption in the system. “Thank God, the putrid smell of corruption in public finance and indeed public administration is now history in Imo State. In addition, the government embarked on the training and retraining of civil servants to bring them up to speed with modern day public service skills.
“This helped to galvanize the service for more efficient and effective service delivery. Even more importantly, it helped to restructure their battered psyche and self esteem.
“The government went further to enact a free medical service for all civil servants by writing off their premium on the National Health Insurance Scheme. It recently promoted all the civil servants who have not been promoted for over 10 years now.
“To address critical manpower needs in certain needy areas, the Imo State Civil Service Commission under the directive of the governor recruited 21 lawyers, 54 agricultural officers, four administrative officers and a programme analyst.True to his trailblazer reputation, Uzodimma shocked the entire Imo State Civil Service with his approval of across-the-board promotion for all of them in November 2022. Mark you, these are workers who have not been promoted in the last 10 years. They were stagnant, frustrated and hopeless for 10 long years.”
The workers have been jubilating ever since. This is their best moment. A civil servant, who identified herself as Ngozi Osuagwu, said: “When all hope was lost, Hope restored our hope.”