There are assertions by most people regarding Government officials.
Some believe that Government officials are corrupt, they seldomly go to office, the ratio of people employed compared to the available work does not correlate, some officials occupying specific positions don't merit such positions, and so on.
Those in the private sector also supported these views and as well argued that effectiveness, efficiency, controls, etc in the public sector can't be compared with that in the private sector.
As a Government official, I want to say it is pathetic that some of these assertions are correct.
The word Corruption has eaten deep into the system and as a result, a lot of abnormalities are put into play.
Promotion is no longer based on merit but on connection, an appointment is based on the amount you can pay in terms of money, female officials go to bed with directors to get positions, etc.
Amongst all of these acts, the particular one I hated most was having a boss who had little or no idea of what we were doing in our unit or department.
I could recall an incident that happened when I was working in a reconciliation unit of the finance department.
Our saddle responsibility is to collect bank statements from the banks, collect other vital security documents, and write up monthly, quarterly, and yearly bank reconciliation statements of the Local Government.
I have been a sub-head of the unit for about three(3) years as an accounting Officer in Grade Level 8, and our books of accounts are always up to date.
Mrs. John a Level 14 officer was posted to the Unit, and we all welcomed her as our boss, after a brief meeting, I gave her a summary of what we were doing in the unit and handed over the necessary documents to her.
She was bent on preparing the first month's Bank Reconciliation Statement of which she Has no idea how to go about it.
My effort to try to put her through one or two things proved abortive and if I persisted, I might be queried or summoned for insubordination.
Since I am very sure our Director of Finance will still have me to blame for her lapses, I decided to prepare another account and keep it with me.
When it was time to submit the Unit Reconciliation Statement Report to the Director of Account, Mrs. John's account was not ready for submission, the report was practically nothing to write home about.
The State Autidors would be coming around for their audit work and the account prepared by my unit is the primary document needed by the State Auditors.
The director of Finance queried Mrs. John for not providing reports as to when due, and out of hanger, she also queried every one of us in the unit.
I told her I would never answer the query. I brought the report with me and gave it to her so that she could go and submit it to the director.
After a successful submission of the report, we had a brief meeting within the unit and in that meeting, she brought up the query issue, and asked if I had answered the query.
I replied no, that I am yet to answer the query. She then said it was either I reply to the query or apologize for being stubborn and adamant.
I replied "With due respect ma I wouldn't be able to reply to the query nor apologize", she then said if that is my final decision, I should be ready to be posted out of the unit and I replied no problem ma.
After a week I received a posting letter that I had been posted to a branch office which is very far from the headquarters.
I embraced the posting and moved on with my life.
