The federal government has concluded the payment of severance package to verified disengaged officers of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) 17 years after their sack.
The Director General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), Mr Dasuki Arabi, said this at a briefing on the payment.
The NIS, during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2006/2007 reform exercise, disengaged 1,330 officers in various cadres and levels in accordance with the guidelines released by the BPSR.
Arabi said the NIS is one of the over 250 federal parastatals affected by the severance policy of the 2006/2007 reform programme of the federal government across the public service.
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He said when the reversal became impossible because it was a government policy that needed to be fulfilled and implemented for the good of the country, protests and petitions were raised by the aggrieved officers.
“Agitations such as effecting the salary scale of CONPASS as against HAPSS to be used as it was used for sister agencies such as Nigerian Customs Service and Nigerian Prisons Service.
“This further created more agitations and complaints. All efforts to resolve the problem became a hard nut to crack,” Arabi said.
He said though the problem lingered for about 17 years without a resolve, his commitment, despite being new to the problem, and other stakeholders like Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Federal Civil Service Commission and Office of the Auditor General of the Federation and others led to the success of the exercise which he said deserves to be celebrated as an achievement.
He said the exercise began on 27 November 2023 with verification exercises across the six geo-political zones and ended on 20th January 2024.
“We are here to mark this historical event because the payment of the disengaged officers which lingered for 17 years has been made to all the officers who availed themselves for the exercise and were eventually verified.
“The records show that 885 officers were verified and subsequently paid their outstanding benefits.
“The records also show that only 17 officers who were verified could not be paid because of inconsistencies in the account details. This is being handled by the stakeholders’ committee,” Arabi said.
He commended the federal government under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for their commitment to addressing this long-standing issue, in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda.
Responding on behalf of the beneficiaries, the National Chairman and Coordinator, National Association of Retired Immigration Officers, Mr Ola Gbadamosi, acknowledged the payment to the association’s members but noted that some beneficiaries could not be traced due to mix-ups in the biodata of the next of kin for some of the late officers.
“Although we have not been able to fully verify some of our members, we have about 400 of them. We are working to ensure that everyone is fully captured,” Gbadamosi said.
He also appealed to the government to settle the disparities in the 17-year salary arrears owed the retirees.
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