Illegal salary cuts, pension scandal rock NIMC

All is not well with the nation’s identity agency; National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) as the workers are at daggers’ drawn with management over allegations of salary cut, illegal recruitment and unfair labour practices in the establishment.

The workers also accuse the management of NIMC of making monthly deductions for the National Housing Fund (NHF) and the contributory pension scheme for over four years without making remittances, accordingly.

Ripples Nigeria reliably gathered that the disquiet in the national identity agency began January, when the management led by its Director General, Aliyu Aziz unilaterally slashed the salaries of staff to about 40 per cent without prior notice.

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The aggrieved workers also decried the way and manner the last promotion exercise released December 2017, was conducted; with some describing it as fraudulent and excessively biased.

Some of the staff who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity gave instance that salaries of some of their colleagues dropped from N72,000 to about N47,000 in January.

It was further gathered that staff of NIMC in the enrolment centres were starved of funds; thereby making them sometimes depend on enrolees for tips before they could carry out their statutory duties.

Meanwhile, worried by the tension generated by the issues and its likely degeneration to full blown industrial crisis, the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) recently intervened to avert imminent showdown between the staff and management of NIMC.

In a letter dated February 8, 2018, with reference number ASCSN/Abj/NIMC/Vol.V/41 and titled “Illegal/irregular appointment and unfair labour practices in the National Identity Management Commission, Illegal/irregular recruitment into the Commission,” obtained by our correspondent, the union listed the workers’ grievances to include “Slicing of salary/total removal of allowances earned by staff of the Commission; irregular promotion/proper placement in the Commission and non-payment of first 28 days allowance to deserving staff.”

Others were “increased job hazards, failure of NIMC management to remit pension deduction of staff in line with extant rules; unpaid overtime (weekend work) to deserving staff, inadequate/lack of funding of enrolment centres across the federation as well as indiscriminate transfer of officers without compensation and failure of the management to train/retrain staff of the commission.”

The letter signed by ASCSN Secretary General, Isaac Ojemhenke said “In view of the need to apprehend these matters and prevent them from festering, the national leadership of the Association, wishes to request an urgent meeting with the DG/CEO and his management team on Tuesday 13th February 2018 at 12noon or Wednesday 14th February, 2018 at 10am prompt, subject to your convenience.”

When contacted on telephone on Friday, Ojemhenke said the union and NIMC management had met to find ways of possibly resolving the issues.

He declined to speak on the implication of deducting workers’ salaries for specific purposes like pension, without remitting appropriately to the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs).

Head, Corporate Communications of NIMC, Chika Ogbonna did not pick calls placed to his telephone for comments as at press time.

Ogbonna had at a separate forum admitted that towards the end of last year, the commission carried out what he called “proper placement and promotion exercise”, but hinged the inability of the commission to pay salaries backing up the promotion exercise on the non-passage of the 2018 budget.

As this lingered, the staff have vowed to resist the salary cuts and push for improved working conditions; saying that the non-remittance of housing and pension deductions was outright fraud that should be investigated by the anti-graft agencies.

 

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