Oyo-Ita Keeps House on Edge over Directive on Perm Sec’s Tenure Extension

Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja
The Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HoS), Mrs. Wilfred Oyo-Ita, has failed to comply with the directive of the House of Representatives on the illegal tenure extension of the controversial Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Education, Dr Jamila Shu’ara.

The House Committee on Basic Education had last Thursday, determined that Shu’ara’s one year service tenure extension contravened the civil service law given that she was due for retirement in February 2016, as she was 61 years-old and had attained the mandatory 35 years in service.

Subsequently, the committee headed by Hon Zakari Mohammed, directed Oyo-Ita to recover all emoluments plus other benefits paid to Shu’ara since the aforementioned period to government coffers.
The House asked her to report back in four weeks.

But by yesterday, there were no signs that Oyo-Ita had complied with the instructions by the representatives to invoke the relevant rules to recover all the emoluments paid to Jamila Shu’ara for the period of her tenure’s extension.

The Director Communications in the of Office of Head of Civil Service, Haruna Imrana, simply said there was no way the HoS would have complied with the directive as the time was still short, when our correspondent sought to establish if she had followed the order. Imrana insisted the letter to her on the issue was only served last week.
According to him, Oyo-Ita only had two working days – Friday and Monday-to comply with the order was which was served on Thursday March 30.

“The HoS was only served at the end of the week. So you people expected her to comply without allowing bureaucracy to work. How long will it take for a letter from the National Assembly to reach here? And how long will it take for the implementation of the order? Imrana said in rage.

He declined our correspondent’s request for an appointment with Oyo -Ita.
He lamented that the HoS had been at the receiving end of negative media reports since the Shu’ara saga began to unfold several weeks ago.

The HoS always insisted that Section 171( 2) the constitution empowered the president to appoint top officials of government, including permanent secretaries.
But the House Committee disagreed by saying that the 1999 Constitution (as amended) did not empower the president to extend the tenure of a permanent secretary, that retired in 2016 and was no longer in service.
The lawmakers were miffed that Shu’ara had got two tenure extensions in breach of civil service rules.