Akwa Ibom State civil service monitoring committee has devised a mechanism to check laxity among civil servants in the State. This is an outcome of unscheduled visits to government offices and parastatals to monitor staff attendance and attitude to work. Members of the committee have been visiting Ministries, Commissions and Bureau in the state.

Among places visited by the committee were Ministries of Culture and Tourism, Rural Development, Lands and Town Planning, Housing and Urban Renewal and the Bureau of Labour and Public Service Matters as well as Political and Legislative Affairs. At the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, nineteen junior and twenty-seven senior staff signed the attendance register as at 8.20am when the time-book was closed by the leader of the monitoring team. Accordingly, the committee decided the more than thirty-five junior and senior staff of the Ministry were to answer queries ranging from lateness to absenteeism.

It also recorded that fifty-seven others in the Ministry of Rural Development will be queried for either absenting themselves from duty or reporting late for work. The committee observed that only one Officer in the Directors’ Cadre in the Ministry reported for work as at the time of the team’s visit. The leader of the team, Mrs. Atim Enoh, who represented the Chairman of the monitoring committee, Mrs. Roseline Ekwerre, described the situation as very unfortunate and unbecoming of Management Staff who are expected to lead by example.

Similarly, more than forty Officers in the Ministry of Lands and Urban Planning had to do some explanations to the Head of Civil Service for either reporting late or being absent from duty when the monitoring committee visited the Ministry. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Renewal and the Bureau of Labour and Public Matters as well as Political Affairs recorded low turn up as between ten and twenty staff of the Ministry and Bureau were to be disciplined for executive laxity towards official duties.

It could be recalled that sometime in June 2010, the State Civil Service Monitoring Committee Team, a creation of the office of the Head of service, headed then by a technocrat and an enigma of administration, Dr. Akpanim Ntekim Ekpe came into existence. The re – branded monitoring team on daily and weekly basis, succeeded in bringing recalcitrant civil servants, both junior and senior staff, to be more responsive to their duties, as the team gives no ministry any notice of its outings.