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Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
Against the clamour for harmonisation of salaries in the public service, the National Salaries Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) has warned that any harmonisation without a comprehensive job evaluation would not work.
Speaking during his sendforth as the chairman of the commission in Abuja, the outgoing chairman of the commission, Dr Richard Egbule, said that the Federal Government should do a total job evaluation so that apple will compare with apple and not orange.
“The way they see harmonisation is not the way it should be. Any harmonisation of salaries in the public service today that does not start with the comprehensive review of the grading system —-that is job evaluation—– so that you can compare apple with apple and not apple with orange— will not work.
“If the work you are doing is equivalent to the job someone is doing elsewhere, he should be paid the same thing. It is a principle of equal pay for work of substantial equal value. You can’t achieve that without job evaluation.
“So, when they are trying to harmonise by looking at the figures only without knowing the job people are doing, they will not get it right. The last comprehensive job evaluation was done in 1972/74. How many years ago? Over 40 years. So, we need a new one so that when civil servants say that I should be paid like this man, they know that the two jobs they are comparing are equal or are substantially equal,” he said.
He said that he was instrumental to the salary increase in his commission because NSIWC looks into the salaries of other agencies. So, for such an agency to do its job effectively, its salary should be equal to the agencies it is supervising.
“I know that we (NSIWC) look into requests for salary review by agencies that are paid buoyantly. And so, if you would do that without any compromise, you must, at least, be well paid. So, we needed to do something about the job. These people who carry it out must be paid well”, he submitted.
