Poor attendance at work: Monitoring Committee blames it on lack of supervision

The State Civil Service Monitoring Committee says Directors of Administration and Heads of Units are not doing enough to supervise their staff’s attendance at work. The Chairman of the Committee, Mrs. Eno Offiong gave the Committee’s position when she led members on monitoring visits to the State Civil Service Commission, Ministry of Lands and Town Planning, Bureau of Labour, Productivity and Public Service Matters, Ministry of Rural Development, the General Services Office and Office of the Head of Civil Service.

Mrs. Eno Offiong, who is the Permanent Secretaryin the Office of the Head of Civil Service said in a situation where Directors of Administration and other Heads of Directorates report late for work, they do not have any moral justification to query their subordinates for exhibiting laissez-faire attitude to duty. The Chairman therefore appealed to internal monitoring committees in the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies to redouble their efforts in closely monitoring their staff attitude to duty. She suggested that the attendance register be cross-checked daily in addition to physical inspection of offices at regular intervals to forestall a situation where a staff signs the attendance register and disappears thereafter.
Speaking on dressing, a member of the Committee and Permanent Secretary, State Budget Office, Pastor Nicholas Ekarika, said the Committee was not impressed with the way officers dress to work. Pastor Ekarika reminded Heads of Administration to bring the contents of the Head of Civil Service’s Circular on Dress Code to the attention of every staff, especially the newly employed.
The Budget Permanent Secretary opined that decent dressing does not imply going for expensive clothing but simple and easily affordable materials that fit into the Dress Code approved in the service. He also stressed the essence of wearing Staff Identity Card while on duty as failure to so attract disciplinary actions.
On Office sanitation, his colleague, Mrs Stella Etukakpan, Permanent Secretary, General Services Office decried the unkempt situation in most offices, caused mostly by the hawking of wares in the offices by Civil Servants. Mrs. Etukakpan advised workers to patronize officially designated outlets for refreshment within the Secretariat Complex, warning that officers and other persons in the habit of hawking wares and food items in government offices risk sanctions.
Meanwhile, the Committee has commended the State Government for enabling the Permanent Secretary, General Services Office and her Colleague in the Budget Office to give the Governor’s Office Annex a facelift. The cleanliness of the offices and surrounding environments was highly appreciated by the Chairman of the Committee who was informed that Government was working assiduously to re-roof the entire complex to check the problem of leakages currently experienced in some of the offices.
Records show that as at 8:10am when the team arrived the State Secretariat Complex, most offices were yet to be opened.
Also on the Committee were Comrade UdoUdoIsong, Mr John Offiong and the Secretary, Mr Jackson Akpan.