DAILY TRUST
Many civil servants at the federal, state and local government areas now go to work twice or three times a week to cut down the cost of transportation, Daily Trust’s findings have revealed.
Cost of living has risen in the last one year due to several economic policies of the government, especially the removal of fuel subsidy.
However, in order to save costs in the face of stagnant salaries, many civil servants have resorted to self- help.
Daily Trust reports that Lagos, Ogun and Osun governments, respectively, approved two-day work-from-home policy for junior civil servants, while those on senior cadre were given a day.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu introduced the policy in February and extended it by three months on September 4.
He directed that workers on grade levels 01 to 14 were allowed to work from home for two days a week, while those on grade levels 15 to 17 were allowed to work from home for one day a week. Ogun State governor, Dapo Abiodun, adopted that Lagos template on September 11.
Osun’s Governor Ademola Adeleke followed suit on Tuesday in a circular from the Office of the Head of Service.
“By this circular, therefore, and until another directive is given, the working day schedules for public servants in the state have been approved as follows:
“Public servants on GL.01 to GL.10 – three days a week; public servants on GL.12 to GL.17 – four days a week,” a statement from the government reads.
A Labour leader in Lagos, Comrade Yusuf Bello described the work-from-home directive as an admittance of the failure of policy.
According to him, “If the policy of the government is working and it is working for the welfare of the people, they wouldn’t move in that direction.
“To pronounce that kind of policy suggests that the government itself understands that its policy is not working. Because when workers are supposed to work for five days or six days as the case may be but they are only able to work for two days, something is lost not just to the workplace but the economy in terms of the informal workers who trade around offices, who live on people who come to work. So there is a multiplier effect on the economy that is lost.
“What I would rather add is for the government to rethink its policies in a manner that those policies would address the welfare of the workers and the people generally, not to look for quick fix temporary solutions. We need an enduring long term solution that would address the challenges of the economy and the welfare needs of the people”, he said.
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