FEC Okays 14 Days Annual Paternity Leave for Workers

Deji Elumoye in Abuja

The federal government has approved a 14-day paternity leave to enable male civil servants to properly bond with their newborn babies or wards.

It also okayed the revision of public service rules for federal civil servants as well as initiated moves to remove the dichotomy between Degree and Higher National Diploma (HND) holders in public service.

The Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Folasade Yemi-Esan disclosed this while speaking with newsmen at the State House, Abuja, at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

Yemi-Esan, who spoke in company of the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, explained that paternity leave was approved for men to observe when their wives are delivered of their new babies.

According to her, bonding was important to help the newly born or adopted babies properly bond with the father at the early period just as the baby bonds with the mother.

She said: “We’ve also gotten approval to include paternity leave. This is something that is new. And this is something that the unions in the service asked that we include, and luckily, we’ve been able to include it.

“We’ve also been able to ensure that leave now is calculated based on working days, not on calendar days, that also has been approved. We also have introduced the transition from paper service to a digital service. So these are some of the new things that are in the new PSR that has just been approved by the federal executive council.”

Asked to explain more on the paternity leave and those qualified to benefit from it, the Head of Civil Service of the Federation said: “Paternity leave is the leave that is approved for men, when their spouses or wives have given birth to a newborn baby, or if the husband and wife have just adopted a baby of less than four months, then the man is entitled to paternity leave of about 14 days.

“So, that is what has been approved for men so that the men and their babies also can bond well together. It’s important because we want the young children and the youth really to bond properly with their fathers, just as they bond well with their mothers.

“So, this is the first time, which has been approved now, for men to bond at the early stages, especially at the early stages of a child’s life, which is when it’s very important for this bonding to take place.”

She further said FEC also approved the review of the Public Service Rules (PSR) which has been in use since 2008.

The HOS, however, stressed that the revised PSR did not accommodate the removal of the dichotomy between Higher National Diploma, HND holders and Degree holders, adding that work was still ongoing on the removal of the dichotomy.

“We presented today (Wednesday) the memo on the revised of the Public Service Rules. We are all aware that the Public Service Rules are all important tool in the public service, it’s what governs the actions of public servants at work. The last time these rules were revised was in 2008.

“And so, we recognised that the revision was long overdue. And so we put everything that we got into it to ensure that we did the revision.

“These rules ideally are supposed to be revised every five years. But this has taken more than that for us to get the revised PSR 2021. In doing the revision, we had a lot of stakeholder engagements, we asked there was a circular that was put out for call from different sectors and from various groups that wanted amendments to the PSR.

“We set up different committees to look at what we got. And finally a technical committee that consisted of permanent secretaries serving and retired and directors were put together to look at the zero draft that we got.

“After they reviewed it, we took it to the National Council on Establishment. At the National Council on Establishment, the essence of the PSR was approved. However, there were some revisions that were supposed to be made before making it public.

“Those revisions have been done. And so we brought it to FEC this morning for approval, and we got approval for it. Some of the revisions that we made, the first thing was that the 2008 version had 16 chapters, the 2021 version now has 17 chapters in it.”

According to her, the chapter on APER (Annual Performance Evaluation Review), and promotions have been replaced with a new chapter on the new performance management system that has been introduced into the public service.

“There is also a chapter that has also been reinvigorated the chapter on training. This is an all important chapter because of the importance that training has in the public service.

“We also have a new chapter on virtual meetings, you recall that there was a policy document that was approved by the federal executive council.

“So we put some of the guidelines from that policy document into the new public service rules. And so we have accepted virtual meetings as a tool to be used in service mouth. And there’s some guidelines there.”

On whether the revised Public Service Rules covers the removal of dichotomy between HND and Degree holders, she said, “it’s in the scheme of service that this will be reflected not in the PSR. It’s the scheme of service that describes entry points and things like that.

“And currently we’re reviewing the scheme of service, it’s just that we did this first, and then we’ll do the scheme of service. So that’s where that will be reflected.”