For resuming late to work and for being punished for this, civil servants in the Ministry of Works immediately retaliated by blocking access into the ministry in the early hours of Thursday.
The protesting staff of the ministry resorted to such rebellious action after their supervising minister, Senator David Umahi, ordered the closure of the gate into the ministry simply because some staff resumed late to office.
Despite the minister’s decision of later directing that the gate should be opened, the staff, in crass display of contempt for the ministry’s new leadership, prevented access into the ministry as they claimed and challenged ‘the minister for acting without giving warning before taking action against their infraction of coming late to office.”
The staff, according to a middle level civil servant of the ministry who spoke to Theliberationnews, under condition of anonymity, acted in retaliation due to the purported way the minister had been running the affairs of the ministry.
According to him, “the minister has been running a one-man show since he was appointed and recently, he threatened to sack state comptrollers due to ‘flimsy’ excuses.
“I believe this was an opportunity for them to vent their anger since he has shown surprising courage in challenging the status quo ante in the ministry,” he declared.
Theliberationnews recalls that the minister had in a press briefing on Tuesday accused directors of not supervising contractors adequately and conniving with them to increase road contracts.
He specifically stated that the lax supervision was the reason roads in the country do not last long.
