Dimapur, March 4 (EMN): The new chief minister is serious about work and office, the Chief Minister’s Office says. It is about time government employees in Nagaland–infamous for not some really honourable reasons–to emulate him, it suggests.
“What do government employees do but be in office when the Chief Minister himself reaches office at 9.30 am sharp in the morning?” stated the press release from the CMO on Saturday.
The CMO stated in one good length: “The 81-year old Dr Shurhozelie Liezietsu “means business and he also means to stick to the mantras he dictated to the heads and administrative heads of department on February 23rd last, the day after he was sworn in, when he along with all his Cabinet colleagues reached the Nagaland Civil Secretariat at 9.30 am: Be punctual in office; set your office in order; and give the best of your services to the public.”“Not many government employees” at the secretariat or the directorates are known to reach office on time, nor are they known to stay till 4 pm, the government observed. “But when the new chief minister is ready by 7 am and raring (sic) to attend office, and insists that he reaches office by 9.30 am, what else can be said but that a new era in governance is set to be ushered in very soon with timings for the thousands of Government employees – at least, in the Secretariat – is about to be drastically changed.”
The CMO gave this account: Reach office “exactly at 9.30 am,” collect attendance records of officers and staff alike by 10.30 am.
“And he did not seem to be very pleased with the reports brought to him later in the morning by his staffers. By afternoon, words spread like wildfire that the chief minister had sent his staffers to check on the attendance of the government employees in the secretariat,” the press release stated.
“Salaries are paid to government employees and they are required to attend to their duties for a specific period of time on all working days,” he told his aides. “If traffic congestion is the reason employees cannot reach their office on time, they should leave home early for their places of work.”
He has also instructed his officers not to entertain any appointments even for the Ministers and legislators with him at his private residential office “except under unavoidable situations.”
Departure for the secretariat from his official residence located at the other end of the city is fixed for 9 am every morning -- as and when he does not have other engagements – and he insists that his movement through the city “should not inconvenience any member of the public,” the CMO claimed.
“I am a public servant and I have no right to inconvenience the people I serve while moving through the city,” he emphatically told his OSD (Security) and insists that his convoy wait out in the traffic jam like any other motorist caught in the morning rush.”
When the head of the state is in “such a mode," the CMO added, “perhaps, others will take a cue for him and we might see some changes in the society – the change starting from the top levels of the society.”
