Economy

THE National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC), has embarked on job evaluation and grading in the health sector as part of efforts to tackle remuneration challenges in public sector.

This is contained in a statement by the NSIWC Head of Public Affairs Division, Mr Emmanuel Njoku on Thursday in Abuja.

According to Njoku, NSIWC Chairman, Mr Ekpo Nta said this at a briefing of Contact Officers drawn from agencies under the health sector.

Nta said the exercise would address increasing challenges in the remuneration administration system in the public sector.

He said the evaluation was important, adding that a logical and equitable wage structure was a natural outcome of job evaluation.

The chairman said the public service, particularly the health sector had changed in nature, content and utility relative to the state in 1974 when the last job evaluation and grading was done.

“Job evaluation eliminates salary inequalities by placing jobs that have similar requirements in the same salary range, as such helping in solving wage- related grievances quickly,” he said.

Nta, however, said the commission had to scale down to the health sector for the evaluation in view of the cost implication, adding that other sectors would follow at a later date.

The Director, Evaluation and Grading, Mr. Chukwuma Nwachinemere, said job evaluation would provide a systematic process for assessing the relative value of one job to one another in an organisation.

Nwachinemere said that the exercise was procedure – oriented, making it necessary for evaluation and grading of officers, while eliminating biases and arbitrariness.

“It should be noted that the government while attempting to tackle these challenges, had at one time or the other, set up several ad-hoc committees and presidential panels.

“These include the Tudor Grading teams of 1942, the Udoji Commission of 1972-1974, followed by the Dotun Philips, Shonekan, Cookey and Onosode presidential panels.

“All these committees and panels came up with one common recommendation, which is, establishment of effective and efficient job evaluation and grading process for all public sector jobs.” (NAN)

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Tags: Ekpo Nta Emmanuel Njoku NSIWC