FG Moves to Address Salary Disparities in Civil Service

As part of efforts to address the inequalities in the salary structures in the civil service, the Federal Government has embarked on job evaluation and grading in the civil service with a view to instituting an equitable reward system in the sector.

In a statement, Head, Public Affairs Division of National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC), Emmanuel Njoku, said that the commission on whose shoulders the project lies, will start with the health sector.

The Chairman, NSIWC, Ekpo Nta said that government cannot achieve a fair and equitable reward system without a good understanding of the relative worth of one’s skills, profession and services.

Nta made this known during the briefing of contact officers drawn from health sector agencies.

“This is to get their buy-in into the exercise before the commencement of the comprehensive job evaluation in the Nigerian Public Health Sector.

According to the chairman, the exercise would address the ever-increasing challenges posed in the remuneration administration system in the public sector emphasising that a logical and equitable wage structure is a natural outcome of job evaluation.

He noted that job evaluation became necessary as jobs in the public service especially in the health sector have changed in nature, content and utility relative to their state in 1974 when the last job evaluation and grading was done.

“Job evaluation eliminates salary inequalities by placing jobs that have similar requirements in the same salary range, as such helping in solving wage-related grievances quickly” the chairman, explained, adding that the commission had proposed to embark on a comprehensive evaluation and grading of jobs in the Federal Public Service in its five-year strategic plan, but due to financial constraints, the commission had not been able to embark on the project.

This has necessitated to scaling it down to sectors starting with the health sector.

Director, Evaluation and Grading, E&G, Mr. Chuma Nwachinemere said job evaluation provides a systematic process for assessing the relative value of job to one another in an organisation.

Nwachinemere noted that the exercise is a procedure – oriented method, which compels evaluation and grading officers, as well as compensation officers to always look at all the key factors and sub- factors of a job, in order to eliminate biases and arbitrariness that might arise in every stage of compensation.

It should be noted that the government while attempting to tackle these challenges, had at one time or another, set up several ad-hoc committees and presidential panels.

These include the Tudor Grading teams of 1942, the Udoji Commission of 1972-1974, followed by the Dotun Philips, Shonekan, Cookey and Onosode Presidential Panels. All these committees and panels came up with one common recommendation which is the establishment of an effective and efficient job evaluation and grading process for all public sector jobs.