Speaking yesterday, at a live programme, the minister reminded Nigerians that President Buhari has repeatedly vouched that no worker would be sacked.
She said the Federal Government would encourage people to exit paid public jobs and incentivise them.
Ahmed said the government would reduce overheads by ensuring that relevant agencies are merged.
The minister said: “Mr. President doesn’t want to disengage staff. That is what he has directed from the beginning of his administration. He also directed that we pay salaries. The Federal Government has never failed in paying salaries, and he said we must always pay pensions.
“So, he has been consistent with those directives and we have followed those directives to the letter.”
When asked about the panacea to personnel cost, Ahmed stated: “Well, we do hope that at the end of the exercise, some agencies will be merged, and it will cut down operational cost.
“And also, we will be able to come up with incentive packages to retrain people and redeploy them in some areas where they are useful. For example, we still have a very high need for teachers. So, we can retrain people and send them to teach, but also incentive packages to exit. Again, that is also money. If you want people to exit, you have to pay them.”
She went on: “That is an incentive package so that they can go. That is why it is taking a lot of time because it is not easy to decide on this. Everything centres on resources. We need resources, and if we have a lot of money, we would just give very beautiful incentive packages, and people would exit and start their businesses. This would reduce the size of personnel cost.”
