From Victor Duruamaku Owerri
Palpable tension has now now gripped civil servants in Imo State following the state government’s alleged plans to downsize it’s workforce
The planned shakeup which is being coordinated by the office of the secretary to the state government is such that names of the workers to be retained in service has been enshrined in a computerized system while those to be eased off are not
A highly placed source quite close to those in charge of the exercise told our correspondent in a telephone interview that the game is such that workers who find their names in the computer system at the end of the day will count themselves lucky while those who didn’t find their names would know that their carrier had ended
“When the exercise is over which I believe will be around February this year, the civil service would have been trimmed down to a manageable size for the government to handle because for now it is over bloated”
However reacting to this development when contacted in a telephone interview, the state chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress Comrade Agustin Chilakpu admitted knowledge of the planned shake up.
He said that a joint meeting between the labour Congress and the state government had been held in respect of the matter pointing out that both workers and pensioners must be paid their salaries and pensions very soon
The NLC boss who declined to give details of the discussion at the meeting however assured that the labour in the state would soon take a position in the matter which would also be made public.
