The FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello, has pledged to begin the process of the implementation of the FCT Civil Service Commission Act, signed by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018.
The FCT Chairman of Joint Unions Action Committee (JUAC), Mr Matilukoro Korede, made the disclosure on Wednesday in Abuja at a news briefing on the outcome of the union’s meeting with the minister.
Korede explained that all the 17 demands presented by JUAC to the FCT Administration (FCTA) at a meeting chaired by Bello on April 13, were trashed one by one.
“On the implementation of the FCT Civil Service Commission Act, for the first time in the history of FCTA, the management agrees that it is a law and truly it must be implemented.
“The minister apologised for the delay in the implementation of the act explaining the law came towards the end of his first term.
“And, when he was leaving it will not be good for him to easily appoint commissioners.
“Because he (minister) was not sure who is coming next in the second term. Let it not be that he was playing game with such appointment.
“When he came back in August 2019, he was preparing to begin the implementation in 2020 but unfortunately the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic disrupted his plan,” he said.
Korede also revealed that the minister said that he had gone far in the process of implementing the act, including working on the appointment of commissioners for the FCT civil service commission.
He stated that JUAC at the meeting also advised the minister to appoint Administrative Secretary to design how the structure of the commission would look like.
According to Korede, the administrative secretary will look for offices for where the commissioners will stay and the likes of that.
“The minister assured the consideration of the suggestion for implementation and also promised that between now and when the 2021 budget will be approve.
“He (minister) will work towards appointing administrative secretary and immediately the budget is approved they will commence the appointment of the commissioners.
“However, this is not an opportunity for all of us to sleep because we have observed that one of the challenges that the union has been having before now is that whenever we go for meeting we will be told so many things and we go to sleep.
“But now, we will not go to sleep, we will continue to engage the management until every other issues are laid to rest,” Korede said.
He said that following positive response from the FCTA, the union had decided to put on hold its threat to embark on an indefinite industrial action after the expiration of its three day warning strike.(NAN)
