The Challenge of Compensation Management in the Nigeria's Public Service

Abstract This work examines compensation management in Nigeria's public service.Compensation is a reward for services rendered by employees in the workplace. It canalso be defined as the money and benefits that organizations give to employees inexchange for work done. The paper contends that workers in Nigeria's public serviceare not adequately compensated, and this gives rise to corruption and other social vicesprevalent in the service, such as bribery, inflation of contracts, extortion, nepotism,embezzlement of public funds, misappropriation, over- and under-invoicing, andfavoritism, among other degrading practices. It is further argued that compensationpackages for Nigeria's public servants are poor compared to those of other Africancountries. Nigeria's minimum wage of USD 65 is one of the lowest on the continentwhen compared to countries such as Seychelles, Libya, Morocco, Gabon, and SouthAfrica, which have minimum wages of 432, 322, 281, 256, and 242, respectively. Thisgloomy scenario exposes Nigeria's civil servants to avoidable temptation in terms ofcorruption. Poor compensation packages also push Nigeria's civil servants intocorrupt practices in order to avoid misery and penury after retirement from service. Thepaper recommends adequate compensation packages for civil and public servantsduring and after retirement if corruption in the service is to be curbed. It concludes thatthe meager compensation packages for Nigeria's public servants are not sufficient tomotivate them to give their best to the service. This challenge is compounded by therecent removal of fuel subsidies in the country. The poor compensation packages haveplaced public servants in a dire financial situation, such that many cannot afford tocommute to work daily. This has resulted in the rationing of workdays for publicservants, an arrangement that appears to be passively supported by the government.