Subsidy Removal: You Can’t Work From Home, FG Tells Civil Servants

Civil servants across the 36 States might no longer work from home as the Federal Government has expressed dissatisfaction over shortening the number of workdays.

The FG reiterated its opposition to state governments, alleging that doing so was not at all innovative for a country like Nigeria.

States government had earlier reduced the number of working days from five to three, as a means of curtailing the negative effect of the removal of fuel subsidy on workers.

However, the Director General of the National Productivity Centre (NPC), Dr. Nasir Mustapha gave the government’s position at a technical training in Nasarawa

Mustapha stated that there must be a working infrastructure that allows working from home, and Nigeria does not have it.

“The truth is that work now is beyond physical work. Going to the office every day to do your work. You can work even when you are at home but there are issues around that in Nigeria.

“To reduce the number of days your workers will work, you should give them the facilities, the infrastructure that would enable them to work online.

“For us in this country, you need to have enough infrastructure to be able to work from home. So, reducing the number of days of work is not creative at all for a country like Nigeria” he said.

Mustapha noted that all over the world now, people are canvassing for less physical work appearances, stressing that the most important thing is to meet up targets when a target is set for you.

He further encouraged the state government to set up infrastructures that support workers and would make it easier for employees to go to their places of employment for the allotted amount of time under the ILO convention.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) promotes workers’ rights at work, encourages decent employment opportunities, enhances social protection, and strengthens dialogue on work-related issues.

The DG said, “So, I propose that the best thing for the governors to do, is to provide facilities that would enable these workers to get to their workplaces for the period as allowed by the ILO convention.

“The convention says that workers should work for a minimum of eight hours every day from Monday to Friday, but, if they want to give some days off for their workers, they should provide the necessary facilities that would enable them to work outside their workplace.”