With her civil service clock winding down in less than six weeks, www.calitown.com sources say Cross River State Head of Service, Mary-Theresa Ikwen, may have put herself in harm’s way with the manner in which she pushed through with the recent re-deployments in the CRS Civil Service and the seeming fact that she may have flouted the state governor’s instructions on the matter.
The re-deployment exercise which affected 18 Directors and three Deputy Directors in the state civil service has been touted in some quarters as being punitive while sources within Ikwen’s office maintain the exercise was done in the overall interest of the service. Facts show that in a letter dated 9th June, 2015 with reference number GO/COS/19/S.13/VOL III/190, emanating from the Office of the Chief of Staff to the CRS governor, Martin Orim, a case was made “…conveying approval for the reversal of staff postings” as originally contained in the letter of 2nd June, 2015, with reference number GO/HOS/199/VOL. XII/91. Instead of complying with the governor’s directive as conveyed to her by the Chief of Staff in writing, Ikwen choose to go ahead with a press release on 12th June, 2015 where she “decried the situation where some Directors involved in recent posting (sic) of Directors in the service had to engage the intervention of some of their Godfathers to cancel their posting…”. It is this extract from the press release that has clearly put Ikwen on a collision course with certain influential persons in government who are insisting that she must proceed on terminal leave immediately Ayade returns to the state.
The argument revolves around whether the Head of Service has the capacity to go against the governor’s directives, “even taking the matter to the radio, in a suspiciously veiled manner”, as a source put it. The same source maintains that “the postings were done in bad faith, why couldn’t she wait for this government to settle down before effecting the postings, must she overheat the system as an exit strategy? Isn’t it enough that she has superintended over monumental corruption as Head of Service, organised shambolic workshops and pocketed the proceeds? Did she not benefit from the criminal sale of laptops at an astronomical price to civil servants? She needs to just go away quietly instead of disobey a governor’s directive to prove no point”, the source concluded. “She had no reason for issuing that statement because it was not done in good faith and it was ill-timed and a flagrant disobedience of the stay action order conveyed to her”, another source maintained.
Ayade who is presently out of the country may be confronted with the situation immediately he gets back to the state. Attempts to speak with the Head of Service at press time were unsuccessful.
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Deployment of staff within the service is domicile in the office of the Head of service. It is in the habit of some Civil Servants to remain in on MDA for Donkey of years for fear of New responsibilities or as they may consider their place of stay juicy. Posting is a routine in the Civil/Public Service who ever runs to political Godfathers to seek sit tight in a political office should leave our Governor out of it. Proff Senator Ben Ayade knows the rudiments in public service and can not outer them. That his directives were flown I consider it not true for the Person of the Head of Service is Gently and easy going she can not flow the Directives of His Excellency. NOTE THE HEAD OF SERVICE IS A DIRECT APPOINTEE OF THE GOVERNOR AND TAKES DIRECTIVES FROM HIM REGARDS SERVICE MATTERS. This publication is malicious and lacks ingredients in the matter. She has no records of any monumental fraud as stated by this publisher. The laptops acquisition scheme is a welcome development by all and sundry. If you listen to our former Governor’s valedictory speech. The Head of service is one woman that has given the service a face lift in our state.