Akure—WORKERS  in the Ondo State Board of Internal Revenue, BIR, yesterday rejected the planned competency test organised by the board. The workers under the aegis of Joint Public Service Negotiating Council, JNC, directed its members not to show up for the test which would have started today. The rejection was one of the resolutions of the meeting of the leadership of JNC held in Akure where the welfare of workers in the state workforce were discussed.

The JNC Chairman, Sunday Adeleye and Secretary, Wole Akinlolu   has written a letter to the BIR Chairman, Mr Akin Akinterinwa with a declaration “We say no to competency test”. In the letter, JNC described the proposed test as ill-conceived and booby trap for the staff for the management to achieve ulterior motive saying the organised labour has no confidence in the competency test being masterminded by the Chairman of BIR.

The council stated that as a political office holder, the chairman has no right to enter into any alliance with any consultant to conduct any test in order to retrench which is surreptitious to retrenchment in the public service. “We wish to state in clear, unambiguous and unqualified terms that under no circumstances should workers in any sector of the state public service, especially Board of Internal  revenue be subjected to such a ridiculous test.

“All workers in the State Public Service were recruited following due process. They were interviewed (written/oral) and adjudged competent before recruitment into the service,” it stated. “If incompetent workers were by error of omission and commission recruited into the service, it is the fault of the employers through the recruitment agency and not the innocent workers.

“We are of the candid opinion that the idea of competency test is being proposed for workers in Board of Internal Revenue to achieve ulterior motive by the protagonists perhaps to redeploys their favourites to some choice departments or to lay-off our innocent workers under guise of incompetence”,

The Council said apart from the fact that the test is unnecessary, the workers were not happy due to non- payment of salaries and other emoluments.