Personal aides to Commissioners and Special Advisers to the governor, whether cabinet ranking or not, must now be sourced from the Civil Service, a circular obtained by SUNRISE NEWS on Tuesday has directed.
The circular, with Ref. No: CIR/HOS/23/Vol.1/070 signed by the Head of Service Hakeem Muri-Okunola and directed all Accounting Officers in Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) to give it deserved Service-wide publicity. It said all categories of aides desired by any appointee of government either as commissioners or Special Advisers or Assistants would be deployed from the over 50,000 workforce pool of the state’s civil service.
The government said it would no longer be paying any aide outsourced by any commissioner or special advisers, and such persons would be paid from the private purse of the appointee.
The move, SUNRISE NEWS gathered may be to protect official leakages of official/government information which may be injurious to the interests of government.
This is because, the circular noted that any of the political appointees that may have had initial agreements with his support staff before assuming office could do so, but that such individual would not be allowed any privilege nor permitted to view official documents assigned to the political appointee to work on.
The state government said there are qualified and competent officers that would be assigned to them as support staff whenever they desired to have such while serving the state.
As gathered, any support staff, who are not government workers, appointed by commissioners and SAs would not be paid by the government, rather the political appointee would source for the funds privately and he or she may not be allowed to gain access into some offices, in order to prevent information from getting to Lagosians through the unauthorized channels.
According to the circular, “It is hereby notified for general information that appointments of Personal Assistants from outside the State Public Service by the Honourable Commissioners and Special Advisers, (Cabinet & Non Cabinet Rank) in the discharge of their day-to-day functions is not in line with the structure in the State Public Service as they will not be allowed any privileges nor permitted to view official documents.
“However, whilst noting that Personal Assistants play crucial role in supporting Political Appointees towards effective service delivery, this all-important support staff can be internally sourced from Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) in the State by ensuring that qualified and competent Officers are assigned to them, so as not to increase the Wage Bill of the Government.
“Consequently, Political Appointees requesting the need of Personal Assistants are hereby enjoined to liaise with the Accounting Officer of affected MDAs and subsequently forward the Officer’s name to the Public Service Office for deployment”.