There are both positive and negative effects of the monetization policy on the Nigeria civil servants. On May 29, 1999 during the inaugural speech, President Olusegun Obasanjo had this to say:
“The
corruption in the public service and the cynical contempt for integrity in the bureaucracy will be stamped out. The
public officers must be encouraged to believe once again that integrity pays. His self-respect must be
rewarded through better pay and benefits both within service and on retirement”.
As a step towards sanitizing the
public service and over-hauling the entire socio-economic sector, the then president
approved the monetization of fringe benefits for public servants in October,
2003.
The journal of needs volumes six
page 92 commenting on the effect of monetization policy on workers declared
that; monetization policy will encourage public servants to make responsible
decisions about the use of their resources. It went further to state that the
monetization policy has the challenge of convincing public officers that it is no
longer business as usual as far as the enjoyment of the benefits in-kind they
were used to.
Adeyemi (2004) commenting on the
effect of monetization on workers lamented that, the policy will create a big
gap between the junior cadre and those at the senior cadre as those at the
junior level were denied of the furniture allowances. He further commented that
the policy will throw many public servants out of job as can be experienced now
in all the federal ministries.
Ariole (2003), in his own view holds
that the monetization policy will impose heavy taxes on workers. He also viewed
the policy as the policy that would create disparity between workers, state and
local government workers since not all states, talk less of local governments
can implement the policy on their workers.