According to INEC’s consultants, the number of staff in the commission is way too much.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja on Tuesday announced a massive re-organisation involving redeployment, transfer and retirement of some of its 67 directors.
The re-organisation also involved the reduction of the departments from 26 to nine while the directorates were reduced to 10. The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Kayode Idowu, who confirmed the re-organisation, said, “There are now fewer departments in the commission being headed by people who are considered best suited to make the departments functional.”
Mr. Idowu explained that some departments were merged, adding that the civil society, gender, voter education and public affairs departments are now collectively known as the department of voter education, public relations and civil society.
He said under the exercise, the leadership would be reconfigured because the commission had a number of directors in the system and a lot of options had been put on the table. He added that the new departments would be headed by directors and there would also be directorates, adding that all the directors could not be accommodated with what was on ground.
According to him, there has been a lot of mind rubbing and nobody will be shortchanged. He said part of the options that was put on the table was that those who had a short time left in the service were given an option of taking their pay upfront or to stay and be reassigned. The press secretary said the re-organisation was as a result of INEC consultant, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ observation that the number of staff in the commission was too large.
However, Mr. Idowu said the commission required a large number of staff due to its large volume of work across the country. He also said that the commission will soon commence continuous voter’s registration in 8,809 wards in the country, adding that when the commission did the recruitment exercise in 2012, only 1,500 people were recruited; and to do the exercise there was a need to deploy more staff across the country. “The number of staff we have is not sufficient, because if you are looking at the number of wards, everybody at INEC will be fully utilised,” he said.
