The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita has called on the Federal Public Servants in the country to equip themselves with Information Communication Technology (ICT) skills without having to wait for the support from the service if only they can favourably compete and remain relevant in the scheme of things especially in the present global ICT world.
Mrs. Oyo-Ita stated this in her address at the Public Service Lecture held in Abuja as part of the activities marking the 2017 Public Service Week celebrations.
She said that for the Civil Service to remain relevant in the fast changing and highly technological modern work environment, it is important that we individually and collectively strive at continuous capacity building to meet up with current challenges.
The Head of Service said further that, “it behoves on the Public Servants to avail themselves opportunities that the service will provide such as the Public Lecture to deepen and expand their knowledge, improve capacities and hone competencies for the performances of your duties and responsibilities”.
Earlier, the lead presenter at the 2017 Public Service Lecture, Dr. Adedoyin Salami recommended the need for the Federal Government to further rationalise the Ministries, Agencies and Departments, (MDAs), from the current 28 to 19 with complete computerisation and digitisation of the service and streamlining of the overlapping of functions across the MDAs so as to reduce the cost of governance.
With this, he said, the turnaround time for the service delivery will be improved, along with the guarantee of its efficiency. Adding that, a necessary reduction in the unwieldy number of MDAs including the 28 Ministries and 542 Agencies (50 of which are said to have no enabling Laws) would lead to much lower cost of governance.
According to him, strengthening the preceding would equally be the ensuring of speedy implementation of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) and that of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC).
Besides, he said that, an overhaul of the budgetary process in order to institute a process by which the budget calendar commences in June and leads to the submission of the Appropriation bill to the National Assembly by September of each year has become imperative.
He explained that essential to entrenching a citizen-centred service delivery culture is the augmentation of government finances for the Civil Service to be able to deliver on the programme required for a youth –led future that has great implications for the African continent.
A key way of achieving this, according to him is “through the bolstering of the revenue base of the Nigerian State by means of total tax compliance by private and public individuals”.
The Theme of the 2017 Public Service Week Celebration is “Entrenching a Citizen-Centred Service Delivery Culture; Partnering with the Youth for Africa’s Transformation”.
SIGNED
Mohammed Manga
Assistant Director (Media Relations)
For: Head of the Civil Service of the Federation
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