The chairman of the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees, AUPCTRE, under the Corporate Affairs Commission, Ibrahim Musa Kirfi, has said that poor welfare packages, salaries and lack of affordable housing are significant reasons public servants are compromising standards.
Kirfi, an Accountability Lab Nigeria’s 2021 Integrity Icon, asserted this on Public Conscience, an anti-corruption radio programme produced by the Progressive Impact Organization for Community Development, PRIMORG, Wednesday in Abuja.
He said that several civil servants were reluctant to display integrity at work due to poverty orchestrated by the harsh economy in the country, stressing that “fear of poverty may be pushing some public servants into committing atrocities, cutting corners, compromising standards and all sorts of illegalities.”
Kirfi, however, urged the incoming federal government to be responsive to the predicament and yearnings of public servants and punish them severely for corrupt acts to deter others.
Explaining what is hindering many public servants from displaying integrity at the workplace, he said, “Issues that make people (civil servants) compromise are driven by lack of good packages to workers, the salaries are not good enough, no provision for affordable housing for workers and some people because of this start thinking of compromising and what you observed now is the cost of living is becoming higher, salaries are not being increased, even when they increase it, implementation becomes a problem.
“If the government can be responsive and responsible to the yearnings of workers, it will be able to hold people accountable for their actions, but you cannot hold people accountable while you don’t provide the basic requirement for them.
Kirfi called for a change of the curriculum of primary, secondary and tertiary education such that it includes the teaching of integrity as part of the basic principles of foundational training of people in Nigerian society, stressing that very harsh legislation against corruption would discourage government workers from compromising standards.
“The government is supposed to ensure there is legislation and provide good practices for workers that will not allow people to compromise standards easily. On the side of the workers too, there should be a kind of training of men rigorously and just like Accountability Lab Nigeria is doing; identifying, naming and faming good people will encourage public servants,” Kirfi stated.
On his part, Communications Lead at Accountability Lab Nigeria, Mukhtar Suleiman, also urged the incoming administration to increase the salaries of workers in the public sector, as well as do their best to increase internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
Suleiman, who urged parents to rise and do more against moral decadence, emphasized that the lack of integrity among public servants and society had more to do with the failure of parents and the family system.
