BEVERLY HILLS, June 01, (THEWILL) – In a bid to restore discipline and make the work force more result oriented, the new Governor of Cross River State, Senator Ben Ayade, has directed the Head of Service to lockout latecomers at all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, (MDAs) by 8.10am daily in order to curb lateness to work.
According to Ayade, who started the enforcement of the new order Monday on his first day in office, warned that all heads of MDAs must live up to their responsibilities by ensuring that civil servants serve in line with prescribed rules.
“If heads of MDAs could report to work as early as 8am, I see no reason why the subordinates should not be in their respective offices on or before that time. For those who are late today, we will pardon them but from tomorrow, all late comers will be locked out and sanctioned accordingly,” the governor said.
He maintained that as a successful business man, he will not fold his arms and watch civil servants who are supposed to serve the people relegate their work to the background, saying: “I am a change agent. In my younger years, I used to be addressed as a system purifier and I am here to do just that; focus exactly on production, expand the horizon and economic benefits and potentials of my people.
“It is only private organizations that run for profit but government’s profit is the social safety net, the welfare and wellbeing of our people. My profit therefore is the number of people I employ, my service to my people is the number of people I have engaged,” he said.
The governor said his administration would appoint more political appointees contrary to speculations that he would prune down their number, saying, “For obvious reasons anyone would have thought of reducing the number of political appointees, but I will not. Perhaps, I will rather increase the number because you must recognize the fact that some of these appointees do not have any other means of livelihoods. When you keep them out of their appointments, you send them back to the streets with enormous responsibilities.”
Continuing Ayade averred that: “We must provide for each other. The only thing that I will do that will be different is that the designations, roles and responsibilities will change. I will increase the appointments, expand the horizon but ensure that for every appointment, there is true value addition to the system. But I don’t intend to either drop, sack or reduce appointment. It is not acceptable because, it is the responsibility of government to create jobs particularly in Africa and carter for its citizenry. I will rather do redeployment than to say cutting staff.”
Fielding question on whether he would be able to actualize the signature projects he announced during his inauguration like the Calabar-Ikom, Ikom-Obudu dual carriage super high way and the sea port due to paucity of funds, he explained that: “Money is not the solution, it is the mind power, the intellect, that are the real solution and we are exploring all natural endowments to achieve all the signature projects already in the pipe line.”
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