….Your grievances unfounded, says management
From Uche Usim, Abuja
Aggrieved senior staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are currently at loggerheads with their management over unresolved matters and have threatened to ground the establishment if their needs are not met.
The workers are squaring up to the management through their union, the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (SEC Unit)
In a letter addressed to SEC DG, Lamido Yuguda dated May 23, 2023 and titled: Demand for effective and final resolution of issues of concern to staff-notification of industrial action, the workers listed non-restoration of full gratuity, management’s lackadaisical attitude towards staff welfare, secret recruitment, among other issues which are inimical to their growth and interest.
But the Head of Department, External Relations of SEC, Bagudu Mohammed Waziri, described the aforementioned issues as a tissue of lies.
According to the peeved workers, SEC management specifically assured them that staff gratuity would be fully restored after the promotion examinations in line with the provisions of the employee handbook.
“It was on the basis of management’s undertaking that the union agreed to soften its stance that there would be no promotion exams until staff gratuity is fully restored.
“Unfortunately, the promotion exercise has long been concluded and the full restoration of gratuity is nowhere in sight. “Indeed, since the conclusion of the promotion exercise, two staff of the Commission who dedicated at least 21 years in service to the Commission, Mr. Salihu Mohammed and Mr. Auwalu Muhammad, have since exited the Commission with peanuts as gratuity.
“It is equally unfortunate that despite decimating staff gratuity, management is set to pay itself hundreds of millions as severance package upon exiting the Commission after serving for less than four years. The Union will vehemently resist and reject the humongous severance package. As the saying goes, what is good for the goose is good for the gander”, the union said in the letter.
The senior staff also accused SEC management of consistently displaying lackadaisical attitude towards issues relating to the welfare of the Commission’s staff, noting that the management ignored the Union’s letter dated April 17, 2023 in which it communicated the resolutions passed at its last Congress.
The resolutions include; Holistic review of the promotion examination process; reinstatement and upward review of staff loans; reinstatement of voluntary additional pension contributions; increment of staff emolument; provision of staff buses to facilitate the commute of staff to and from the Commission; transparency in the selection process of staff who embark on foreign trainings and travels.
The union also alleged that SEC management was currently undertaking a secret recruitment exercise and has appointed a questionable committee to oversee the kangaroo exercise. “The Union is not unaware that management has bribed the Federal Character Commission (FCC) with money and employment slots to obtain an illegal waiver of the requirement to advertise the recruitment exercise”, it said.
But reacting to the flurry of allegations, the Head of Department, External Relations of SEC, Bagudu Mohammed Waziri, said there was no iota of truth in what the union has put up.
“If the union wants anything from you, they’ll look for things to blackmail you with, whether there’s truth in them or not. That’s the way union operates globally.
“As to employment, it has a process and it entails getting certain clearance from certain quarters. So, if you need to employ, you do a NEEDS assessment and get all relevant approvals. So, if I’m doing a NEEDS assessment and someone says I’m doing secret recruitment, does that make sense? People were disengaged from the Commission and people also left voluntarily around 2021. Those people need to be replaced. You also determine the kind of staff you need and their fields. You also determine if you need to get approvals from the federal character commission, civil service commission and all that. All these must be in place before you commence recruitment. In a nutshell, nobody was recruited.
“On gratuity, there are laws governing it. The laws were made by PenCom. It’s a regulator like the SEC.
If there are issues that are unclear, the SEC needs to go back to PenCom and the Ministry to seek clearance. It’s still at that stage. Some people felt aggrieved and talked about it.
“On DG’s incessant overseas trips, we need to understand that SEC is a member of WASRA and the DG is the Chairman
“If there’s a meeting, he attends. Being a Chairman, he is invited to meetings and he must attend whether he likes it or not because of certain decisions that will be taken.
“Besides, he didn’t go without approvals from the Finance Ministry. If they’re not genuine, he won’t go. He didn’t collect any estacode to travel to Malaysia and refused to go”, he stated.
