Barring any last-minute’s change in plan, the leadership of the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) will on Monday, April 12, 2021, hold a crucial executive committee meeting to ratify a decision as to whether or not to proceed to shut down the National Assembly beginning Tuesday, April 13, 2021, over issues of outstanding minimum wage arrears, improved condition of service encapsulating other entitlements as contained in their conditions of service.
At the centre of the minimum wage issue and other entitlements is a whopping N13 billion to which the workers are laying claim.
The workers are pressuring the management under the leadership of the Clerk to the National Assembly, CNA, Architect Amos Ojo, to pay the N3 billion arrears and N10 billion for other entitlements as provided for in the conditions of service.
It has been a game of wits and grits between the workers’ union and the management to determine who blinks first.
PASAN has been dogged in the pursuit of the workers’ entitlements, putting the management under intense pressure.
Moves by the management, in recent times, to secure the significant support and understanding of the leadership of the union have fallen through.
The management’s initial olive branch of two 34-seater coaster buses to the workers’ union was considered to be too tokenistic by the union and consequently rebuffed by the leadership who reportedly insisted that workers were more interested in the payment of their outstanding N3 billion minimum wage arrears and management’s commitment to paying the N10 billion entitlements to them.
Apart from the payment being sought by the workers, a source said that while the workers’ union was not compromising on the arrears and entitlements, the union had expected a minimum of five new 34-seater Coaster buses and not the two allegedly refurbished buses that were to be inaugurated on that occasion to, at least, demonstrate good faith.
The inauguration of the buses was scheduled to hold on March 29, 2021. The boycott extinguished the ceremony.
About twenty-four hours after the boycott saga, the CNA had reportedly called a meeting of PASAN’s leadership in his office where, as learnt, he was to extract from the leadership a confidence vote in his administration.
The leadership of the union, according to a source familiar with the development, shunned the meeting.
The union’s position, as learnt, was that it would be shooting itself in the foot by endorsing the CNA’s leadership that has largely failed to address its members’ welfare issues and improve their conditions of service.
The moves by the management to get the union to backpedal on its plans to shut down the National Assembly came only after the expiration of the initial 21-day ultimatum and a subsequent 14-day ultimatum, which lapsed on March 31, 2021.
When the management got serious about engaging with the union, it adopted what a staff member described as “a half-hearted, half-measure, non-committal approach that was lacking in utmost good faith.”
He said the suggestion in the management quarters that the CNA was concerned about the workers’ welfare was misplaced, pointing out that ‘if that were the case, staff members would not have been threatening and issuing strike warnings in accordance with labour laws.”
According to him, “the CNA is more concerned about preserving his position, which is the reason he is making a lot of concessions to the political wing of the National Assembly at the expense of the welfare of the workforce in the bureaucratic wing.
“The concessions cutting across the broad spectrum of the management’s traditional sphere of control and influence have cumulatively constricted the operations of the management and depleted its budgetary provisions.
“For instance, it is inexplicable that Service Committees of both chambers which are sensitive and critical to the running of the chambers and which should have been run by Clerks of both chambers, have been ceded to the political wing of the National Assembly- for the Senate and House leadership to run the services committee as it pleases them while the CNA provides the final approval as the Chief Accounting Officer.
“As it is today, the Clerks to both chambers are not secretaries of the National Assembly’s Services Committees.
“This is odd and against the grains of best management practices. The CNA approves everything that comes to his table from the Service Committees now under the control of the two chambers.
“Again, It will interest you to know that the Management Tenders’ Board has yet to meet for once since the CNA stepped in the saddle and the funds of the management are being run on the basis of anticipatory approvals, an offence that cost the late Chuba Okadigbo his position as Senate President in 2000 and Hon. Patricia Etteh, her position as Speaker of the House of Assembly in 2008. Yet, the management keeps asking workers where it would get money to pay our entitlements.”
The workers are, as learnt, not also happy with some decisions taken by the management under Architect Ojo.
One of them pointed the finger at the CNA’s decision to sack of the consultants in charge of the management of the internet hub and their replacement with new consultants engaged by him together with the redeployment of very good hands from the ICT department to other departments not correlational to their field of experience and professional training/backgrounds.
This was said to have raised not a few eyebrows among the workforce.
According to another concerned staff member: “The CNA is probably trying to get other people into the problem he is in as an architect superintending the administrative wing of the National Assembly.
“It is a mockery, outright sheer absurdity that an architect without certification for administration is heading the bureaucratic wing of the NASS because he is the most senior person as of the time the last CNA was eased out of the office.
“Salisu Maikasuwa, who was CNA before Muhammed Ataba Omolori, has a PhD in Public Administration while Omolori is a lawyer with well over two decades post-call-to-Bar experience.
“Those before them also got their requisite certifications that qualified them as suitable for the position and the exertions of the office.
“The public service rules are quite clear about the issue of certification. Rule no 020506 states that posting of officers outside their professional cadres is prohibited.
“This is manifesting negatively in the CNA’s work ethic. He is noted for taking between three and five days to treat a single file. And, it will interest you to know that he does not know where to refer the treated files. What he now does is to refer all administrative and personnel files to the Deputy Clerk to the National Assembly (DCNA) while he (CNA) only treats financial files.”
Another staff member complained about the CNA habitually showing up late at functions where even the Senate President and Speaker are sometimes in attendance.
He said that “the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC) might need to justify its decision of confirming a non-performing architect as CNA in two months of acting in the office when those before him and who were more cerebral and certificated for the position acted in the office for a minimum of six months before confirmation.”
Feelers indicate that the conversation about contending issues between the workers’ union and the management may continue to falter because of the uncooperative attitude of the management led by the CNA where at every meeting he has kept insisting that there is no money to take care of the demands of the workers.
This has further raised questions about the management of public funds appropriated for the NASS management to attend to the issues of workers’ welfare, entitlements and improved conditions of service.
“After all, the maintenance of the NASS structures and other capital projects in and around the premises of the National Assembly complex has continued to be the responsibility of the Federal Capital Development Authority. So, where is the management funds going into?” a worker queried.
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