NIGERIA UNIONS WARN OVER JOB CUTS!

Nigeria's civil servants have a poor reputation. Nigeria's main trade union body has raised the possibility of a strike over government plans to cut 33,000 jobs - 20% of all civil servants.
Cutting so many jobs at one time "is not in the national interest", said Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) leader Adams Oshiomhole. The reforms are intended to improve efficiency in Nigeria's civil service.

The government says many of those to be sacked are unfit, guilty of serious misconduct or "ghost workers". The minister in charge of civil service reform, Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, said that those who did not lose their jobs would be given an unspecified pay rise.

"This country cannot withstand the social consequences of offloading 33,000 workers at once. If it does that, the consequences will be grave," Mr Oshiomhole said. "We are therefore calling on President Olusegun Obasanjo and the federal government to ask el-Rufai to put this exercise on hold and open up discussions with the unions in the civil service on the issue."

Profile: Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai

Announcing the cuts earlier this month, Mr Rufai said many people had been employed without the proper qualifications after the recruitment of civil servants was decentralised in 1988 under the military government. "There was no monitoring mechanism such that ministers just went to their villages and packed everybody [to fill the public service]. That was the problem," he was quoted as saying in ThisDay newspaper.

Elections are due next year and Mr Rufai said he wanted to hand over a "fairly decent" public service. The government said it has earmarked 50bn naira ($389m) for the "house-cleaning exercise", which would be used not only to pay for redundancies but also increased salaries. Mr Rufai is one of the team brought in by President Obasanjo to help turn round Nigeria's economy.
Nigeria is Africa's largest oil exporter but most of its people live in poverty.

In April, Nigeria used its oil revenues to pay off its debts to the Paris Club of creditor governments - the first African country to do so.

BBC NEWS REPORT.