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CHALLENGES OF
FRINGE BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION
(A SURVEY OF
THE CIVIL SERVICE IN RIVERS STATE)
CHAPTER
ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The
civil service remains very critical and crucial to national development and
stability in developing societies. In developing societies, the challenges of
development and stability of the nation depend to a great on the efficient,
effective, mobile, accountable Civil Service system and the robustness of its
democratic system. It provides the machinery and acts as a springboard for such
development, stability and consolidation of democratic dividends.
As
a major instrument for implementing government policies, the Civil Service in
expected to be professionally competent, loyal and efficient. However, it is
broadly acknowledged and Nigerian experience attest to this, that when the
incentive structure in the Civil Service remains poor, its efficiency as well
ability to affect policy, such as that is directed toward reducing poverty,
will remain low.
The
main objective of this work is to x-ray the challenges of fringe benefit
administration and the efficiency of the Nigerian Civil Service. In a recent
summary of the factors affecting the efficiency of the Nigerian Civil Service,
Ajayi (1998) has noted the following: over staffing and the closely related
poor remuneration of employees in the public service as key factors. Rapid
public sector recruitment under military administrations had resulted in an
oversized and under skilled workforce in whom employees often did not have the
appropriate technical skills needed for their assignments.
Civil
servants generally received low pay and several fringe benefits such as free
housing, free vehicle and various other resources. According to Salisu (2000)
weak management and oversight also meant that there were problems with ghost
workers on the government payroll; while personnel and pension registers often
were unreliable”. Moreover, a weak incentives structure in the civil service,
which did not foster good performance, resulted in a weak ethic and poor
service delivery by many government ministries, often characterized by hidden
or outright corrupt behaviour on the part of many civil servants.
Reforms
were therefore needed to re-professionalize the civil service and increase its
focus on service delivery; hence the monetization of fringe benefits reform
amongst others. This fringe benefit reform has its implementation challenges,
which forms the crux of this study, ranging from; inadequacy of funds,
sustainability, consistency, measurability, uniformity etc.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Successive
governments in Nigerian have introduced reforms aimed at improving the
efficiency and effectiveness of the civil service. Prominent among such reforms
hinges on incentive structuring, which gave birth to the monetization policy.
The introduction of the monetization policy represents a major change in
management in the civil service in Nigeria. Managing this fundamental change
has become a critical challenge to the system and continues to command
significant attention from its top most echelon.
Managing
the change of incentive policy is huge and demanding but more demanding and
what pose a big problem is the administration of the fringe incentive, be it
monetization or the provision of amenities. This challenges range from the
consistency of the programme, funding, scope, sustenance, enforceability,
uniformity to labour union activities amongst others.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The
purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which the challenges of fringe
benefits (incentive structure) affect the administration of the civil service
system in Nigeria. It also focuses on the key determinants of job satisfaction
among civil servants in Nigeria, the effect of reward on productivity,
efficiency and effectiveness.
According
to Adelabu (2005) many factors affect civil servant’s motivation and job
satisfaction levels, which are classified into job context, job content and
reward system.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In
recent past or significant number of studies on the problems and challenges of
fringe benefits administration in Nigeria have accumulated (Williams 1997) yet,
despite a background of intensive studies on the contextual effects of problems
on the administration of the incentive structure of the civil service, something
remain lacking; a comprehensive study of the effect and challenges of fringe
benefit administrative study of the effect of the civil service. This gives
rise to the following research questions.
1. Is there low motivation among civil
servants in Nigeria?
2. To
what extent do the challenges of fringe benefit administration affect
efficiency and productivity of the civil service?
3. Does
the monetization of fringe benefits have significant effect on job satisfaction
and increased productivity?
4. To
what extent has the incentive reform in the civil service helped to reduce
corruption and wastage in the system.
This
study is aimed at answering these and many more questions and proffer solutions
and recommendations.
1.5 HYPOTHESES
H01:
The challenges of fringe benefit administration have no effect on the
efficiency and productivity.
H02:
Monetization on fringe benefits has no significant effect on job satisfaction
and increased productivity.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
A
critical analysis of the challenges of fringe benefit administration in the
Nigeria Civil Service will no doubt convince one of the truths that it will be
of great benefit to the Nigeria Government, the Civil Service Commission and
the Civil Servants.
It
will x-ray the various problems and inefficiencies in the benefits
administration and relate them to the impact on job satisfaction, productivity
and efficiency.
The
efficiency and productivity of the Civil Service is paramount to the Nigeria
economy because the Civil Service serves as the engine room to the day to day
running of the economy.
It
is one thing to introduce an incentive package for workers and it is another to
effectively implement it to the satisfaction of the worker. It is also, another
to know, to what extent the implementation affects the efficiency and
satisfaction of the worker.
This
study on the part of government, will enable her know the types of fringe
benefits that will stand as a motivator to the Civil Servant, and the best way
to implement such incentive amidst corruption and bottle necks in the system.
It
will also, to the Civil Servants, give them an insight to equate their
incentive with productivity in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. It will
also afford them the opportunity to know why their incentives are not properly
administered.
To
the society at large, the Civil service being the engine room of the economy is
looked up to, for efficiency, therefore, whatever possesses a threat or problem
to the Civil Service is a great concern to all. This study will give the public
an insight to why certain things especially low morale, job dissatisfaction etc
occur frequently in the Civil Service.
The study will at the end recommend ways of
tackling the menace and proffer possible solution to it.
1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Bureaucrat
Officials
working in a government department, especially those following administrative
procedure and the rules of the department very strictly.
Deregulation
Freeing
business activities from certain rules and control
Monetization
The
conversion of benefits usually paid in kind to cash
1.8 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
In
carrying out this study, a number of problems constraints and difficulties were
experienced. They range from:
a. The
unwillingness of some top civil servants especially those in charge of payments
of salaries and fringe benefits to divulge information.
b. Time constraint: The time to do an
elaborate work, interview and gather materials from all sections, and person is
never enough.
c. Financial
constraint also affected the completion of the work. The high cost of
transportation from one ministry to the other, cost of materials for this work
and the ability to travel outside the state to source materials, information
and cross reference interviews posed a major constraint on the completion of
this work.
1.9 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
The
researcher consists of five major chapters. Chapter one focuses on the
introduction of the research work, background of the study, statement of the
problem, purpose of the study, research questions, hypotheses, significance of
the study, definition of terms, limitation of the study and the organization of
the study.
Chapter
two is all about the review of the related literature while chapter three
covers the methodology, which has to do with the Research Design, Sampling
procedure, sample size determination, data collection method, operational measures
of variables and data analysis technique.
Chapter
four and five covers Presentation/Analysis of Data and Discussion, Conclusion,
Recommendations respectively, thereafter bibliography.
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