21 Federal Civil Service Directors Fail Permanent Secretary Exams

By Olawale Ajimotokan

Twenty-one directors in the Federal Civil Service have failed the written examinations that were organised to fill the vacant permanent secretaries’ positions.

A document that was signed by Mr. Sunny Echocho and titled “Re; Selection exercise for the appointment of permanent secretaries in the federal civil service,” and dated June 1, 2021, announced the result on behalf of the examination committee.

The document disclosed they scored below the 50 percent threshold necessary to advance to the final stage of the exercise.

The least score by any candidate in the examination was 33.5 per cent while the highest was 68.5 per cent.

Names of the candidates were, however, not indicated on the document as they were only identified by their service numbers.

The written examinations were held in Abuja on Monday to replace the retiring permanent secretaries from Ekiti, Enugu, Katsina, Lagos and Nasarawa States. The test was to appraise their grasp of policy knowledge of 46 substantive directors on Salary Grade Level 17.

The remaining 25 candidates who passed the examination by scoring 50 per cent and above, would be qualified for the next stage of the selection process which was held yesterday. They were grilled on their ICT Proficiency, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint presentation.

The final stage of the selection process is an interactive session with a broad-based panel of experts and practitioners.