No fewer than 4,000 Civil Servants in Benue sat for their promotion examination on Saturday in Makurdi.

The Permanent Secretary, Bureau of Establishment, Mr Ode Echele, disclosed this to newsmen in an interview in Makurdi.

Echele said that the category of the state workers that sat for the examination were those who were on grade levels 6 and above.

He said they were drawn from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), explaining that other state parastatals were excluded.

”Those sitting for the examination are only core civil servants and they are staff that were due for promotion since Jan. 1, 2018,” he said.

He, however, dispelled rumours that eligible staff, who sat for the examination, were compelled to buy the civil service regulation books.

He described such rumours as “mischievous”, explaining that ” no worker was compelled to purchase any book for the examination, those that bought, did so willingly”.

He said they purchased the books because of their relevance to the examination they were writing.

“They know that the book will help them a lot in the course of their duties because they will serve as their reference materials for them from time to time.

“Also, the books will enable them to know much about the service and they will as well assist them to pass their examinations.

“We do not want them to fail that was why we brought the books for them. We do not want stagnation, which most times come as a result of failing to pass promotion examinations.

“Even organisations that are not writing the examination now have requested for the books having known their importance,” he said.

He also admonished officers who were responsible for preparing the list of eligible workers, who were due for the examination, to always send the list to the Head of Service (HoS) early enough.

“I urge all MDAs to be responding to the core circulars very promptly to avoid unforeseen delays as well as challenges,” he advised.

He lamented that circulars were sent to MDAs requesting them to forward the list of eligible workers for the 2018 promotion examination since the last quarter of 2017 but only few responded promptly.

The permanent secretary regretted that most of them sent in their lists few days to the date of the examination. (NAN)

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