Prioritise workers’ welfare, civil servants tell Ambode

Some Lagos State civil servants on Wednesday urged Gov.-elect, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode to make workers’ welfare top on the agenda of his administration. The workers spoke in separate interviews withnewsmen in Ikeja. They said that though the administration of Gov. Babatunde Fashola had done well in that respect, Ambode should improve on what he had done.

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“We are calling on our in-coming governor to give priority attention to our welfare. Workers are the drivers of the state’s development and so they deserve the best. “Gov. Fashola has done well in the prompt payment of enhanced salaries, provision of buses to convey workers to their different homes, staff training and others, but there are still other issues.
” We want Ambode to do more so as to motivate workers to give more,” Mr Adewale Akeem of the Ministry of the Environment said. Another civil servant who simply identified himself as Musa urged Ambode to focus more on training and retraining of staff. He said continuous capacity building of workers would not only help to sharpen their skills and competencies, but would also boost their productivity.
A worker who pleaded anonymity urged Ambode to re-introduce the leave allowance which had not been paid separately since the introduction of the Consolidated Salary Scheme. She said though Fashola had repeatedly explained that the allowance was not cancelled but was captured in salary system, they would still want it paid separately. “Since the introduction of the Consolidated scheme, which we are made to understand captures all our allowances, we have not been getting our leave allowance separately.
“What we want from Ambode is to find a way of paying the allowance to workers only when they are going on leave because that is when they actually need it, “she said. Mr Rafiu Azeem of the Ministry of Rural Development commended Fashola on the disbursement loans to workers to buy cars and other things. He urged the governor -elect to continue with the practice, urging him to ensure more lower-cadre workers benefit from the gesture.
Mrs Linda Akintunde, another civil servant, urged Ambode to relax the security measures around the entry and exit points around the secretariat. Akintunde urged Ambode to reopen the gates leading to Shoprite from Adeyemi Bero Auditorium and the one at the back of the Deputy Governor’s office. She explained that this would ensure that workers who had offices in these areas would not need to trek the distance to the First Gate or Second Gate to access the main road.

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