The Joint Public Service Negotiating Council (JNC),
Ondo State has rejected the planned competency
test for workers in the state Board of Internal
Revenue (BIR).
The rejection was one of the resolutions reached at
the end of the meeting of the leadership of the JNC,
where issues on the welfare of workers were also
said to have been deliberated upon.
Sequel to the resolution, JNC officers led by the
Chairman, Mr Sunday Adeleye and Secretary, Mr
Wole Akinlolu stormed the BIR office located at
Alagbaka area of Akure and directed all workers in
the office not to show up for the test.
To formalise the position of the JNC, a strongly
worded letter was addressed to the BIR Chairman,
Mr Akin Akinterinwa with a declaration that “We say
no to competency test”.
The JNC in the letter described the proposed test as
ill-conceived and booby trap for the staff for the
management to achieve ulterior motive, saying the
organised labour has no confidence in the
competency test being masterminded by the
Chairman of BIR.
The Council stated that “as a political office holder,
the chairman has no right to enter into any alliance
with any consultant to conduct any test in order to
retrench in the board, which is a surreptitious to
retrenchment in the public service.
“We wish to state in clear terms that under no
circumstance should workers in any sector of the
state public service, especially Board of Internal
Revenue be subjected to such a ridiculous test.
“All workers in the State Public Service were
recruited following due process. They were
interviewed and adjudged competent before
recruitment into the service.
“If incompetent workers were by error of omission
and commission recruited into the service, it is the
fault of the employers through the recruitment
agency and not the innocent workers.
“We are of the candid opinion that the idea of
competency test is being proposed for workers in
Board of Internal Revenue to achieve ulterior motive
by the protagonists perhaps to redeploy their
favourites to some choice departments or to lay-off
our innocent workers under the guise of
incompetence,” the JNC stated.
The Council said apart from the fact that the test is
unnecessary, the workers were not happy due to
non- payment of salaries and other emoluments.
“The morale of workers in the State Public Service is
now at lowest ebb, they are traumatised and
psychologically tormented following non-payment of
over three months salary arrears and the
management of
“It is imperative to state that any surreptitious
attempt to subject any worker in any sector of the
State Public Service to any term of competency test
will be vehemently opposed”, JNC declared.