Protest Rocks Women Affairs ministry over Minister’s Alleged insensitivity to staff welfare
Activities at the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs have been grounded as aggrieved staff of the ministry carried out protest over alleged insensitive attitude of the Minister, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman Ibrahim towards staff welfare.
The protest started when the minister scheduled a town hall meeting with staff for 10 am Wednesday morning at the ministry.
Our correspondent gathered that staff of the ministry came as early at 8am and when the minister eventually came at 12pm, she went straight to her office without uttering a word to staff who had been under the sun waiting for her.
Part of the protest includes the lack of working tools in the ministry as 90 per cent of the systems are obsolete, and payment of training allowances, among several others.
The aggrieved staff insisted that they would not back down from the protest until they came to a compromise with the minister.
Chairman of the in-house union of the ministry, comrade Alake Success insisted that the minister’s attitude does not represent what the administration of President Bola Tinubu stands for.
According to him, “it’s sad that in a democracy, a minister is behaving this way. She was the one that called for the meeting. We have been here since morning only for her to come and walk straight to her office without addressing the meeting she called.
“This is the kind of behaviour that will make the President lose votes.”
On her part, the Joint union Chairperson, comrade Ann, said the action of the minister since she assumed office has rendered them redundant.
According to comrade Ann, most times staff resort to business centres to print official documents.
We don’t have working tools, not even a paper to work with. The systems are obsolete. Some of them have no ink, nothing to work with.
“So, for most of our jobs, we go to the business center to do it. They keep on telling us that there is no money, no money, no money has not been released. So, we are not happy because they are making us redundant.
“When your boss gives you an assignment to carry out within 24 hours and you don’t carry it out, it means you have failed. So, we always try to execute our work even though we don’t have the resources to do it.
Sadiq Ilia, a staff of the ministry, who spoke with our Correspondent said the issue of staff welfare remains a major challenge in the ministry.
He noted that in spite of the fact that provision is made in the budget for office equipment, the management keeps saying there is no money to properly run the ministry.
“I don’t know why they are saying there’s no keys to work, they don’t have resources to get all this ink, because these things are embedded in the budget, but unfortunately, maybe they think we are ignorant. We know we have the capital, the budget, we have capital, we have the overhead, we have the personnel cost, but they will keep telling us that there’s no money, but they fly in and out of Nigeria every day. So, we find it difficult to even understand, because even a layman in the market will understand that there’s money, and we equally make our findings through the accounts.
“We discover that money is coming in and money is going out. But at the staff level, we are not feeling any impact, we are not seeing anything. Most of us here go out to work.
“Yesterday, in fact, I had to pay 2,000 Naira to photocopy a work that is meant for the ministry. So, this is what all of us, virtually all of us have been facing in the ministry. Then, like the chairman has said, the chairman of our association, he has said it, but I want to echo that.
“Welfare is captured in the overhead, we have personnel cost, then we have the capital. In the overhead, that’s where you capture the welfare, the training, and whatever. Money comes virtually every month in the overhead.
“I used to make findings, I followed up. money will come, but they will end up telling us there’s no money, or they have used money for one thing or the other. At the end of the day, people that even go for training, they will not see money.
“So many of them will go for training. Some that have the opportunity to go for training, they will not see money. You use your money and go. Then at the end of the day, like the one I went, 2023, I have to wait for about one year before even getting the money. And these things are embedded in the overhead,” Ilia explained.
Meanwhile, as at the time of filing this report, staff of the ministry were told to stay at home pending the resolution of the matter as findings reveal that officials from the Head of Service of the Federation may be meeting with National Executive council of the unions to find a lasting solution to the debacle.
