Federal govt lifts ban on directors of administration’s promotion

Head of Service (HOS) of the Federation, Mrs. Winifred Ekanem Oyo-Ita, has announced the lifting of earlier ban placed on the promotion of Directors of Administration.

Before now, the Directors were denied promotion, while their counterparts in professional callings were moved up to the position of Permanent Secretary before retirement, a situation that has brought stagnation into the Federal Civil Service.


Oyo-Ita, however, revealed that subsequently, all applicants for the Administrative Officer position in the service must be computer literate, if they must be considered for employment.

The HOS broke the news, yesterday, in a message at the second edition of the Permanent Secretary Service Welfare Office Quarterly breakfast meeting with the organised labour union in Abuja.

“I am particularly delighted to inform you that the issues of promotions for the batch of Directors in the Administrative Cadre has been finally resolved. The lifting of the court injunction on this issue also led to the conduct of examination for the 2015-2017 batch of Directors in the same cadre.”

According to her, over 290 Deputy Directors sat for the exams, out of which about 140 were successful. She said that with the achievement, the civil service will ventilate itself and officers will be rewarded for hard work.

The HOS said with the development, government now has a solution to the issues of lack of Directors of Administration in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and that departments, which were hitherto manned by officers in Acting capacity, would now be headed by substantive Directors.

Earlier, the Permanent Secretary, Career Service Welfare, Office of the HOS, Mrs. Wilson-Jack Ndidi Esther, said since the introduction of the meeting last year, robust discussion and dialogue that have yielded positive results have been achieved by both parties.