Yemi-Esan Urges Transparency in Civil Service’s Award Scheme

Yemi-Esan Urges Transparency in Civil Service’s Award Scheme

The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoCSF), Dr. Folasade Yemi-Esan, CFR has implored Ministries, extra- Ministerial Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to imbibe the culture of fairness and transparency in the selection of monthly and annual Awardees for the Rewards and Recognition Scheme (R&RS) in the Federal Civil Service. The call was made at the Opening Session of a Workshop organised by the Office on the Implementation of the Rewards and Recognition Scheme (R & RS) for Directors of Human Resources and Deputy Directors in charge of Staff Welfare of MDAs, held on 22nd June, 2023, in Abuja.

The HoCSF was represented at the event by the Permanent Secretary, Staff Welfare Office (SWO), Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF), Alh. Mahmud Adam Kambari. He stated that the justification of every nomination for award, fairness to all in the process of selection, as well as standardization of all the procedures are very crucial, as these are secrets to seamless, successful and sustainable implementation of the recently introduced R&RS in the Federal Civil Service.

According to the Permanent Secretary, R&RS was introduced in May, 2019 by the OHCSF to serve as a motivational tool to encourage excellence and human capital development for career progression. The system is performance driven, which serves as an enabler for effective service delivery in all MDAs with the following fundamental objectives; setting a professional framework for institutionalising performance management and service delivery mindset; linking rewards and recognition to measurable performance and serving as a medium for MDAs to make nominations for various Service-wide and National Recognition, Honours, Merits, as well as Productivity awards.

Mr. Kambari, intimated the participants on the aim of the Workshop, which is to strengthen the implementation of the Scheme in the Federal Civil Service for transparency, merit and uniformity in the selection process. The idea behind the Scheme is to provide a comprehensive and robust rewards system that will enhance productivity, as well as attract, nurture, develop and retain the best employees in the Civil Service. It is also pivotal in linking rewards to performance, thus the application of the new Performance Management System (PMS) will be instrumental in its implementation to ensure that Civil Servants are held accountable in the discharge of their duties, he added.

He also highlighted on the three (3) categories of Awards namely; Service –Wide Awards and Recognition Scheme; MDAs’ Awards and Recognition Scheme and the Departmental Awards and Recognition Scheme. The Departmental Awards, according to him, is intended to be on a monthly basis, which had commenced in most MDAs with the award of “Best Staff of the Month,”where pictures of winners are pasted at strategic places within the MDA. Some MDAs have also begun the implementation of the Scheme by conferring Awards on deserving Officers, who have distinguished themselves in the course of performing their statutory services at the Ministerial level. The Service –wide Awards and Recognition Ceremony is being organized by the OHCSF, such as the one that took place during the 2022 Civil Service Week celebrations, where forty (40) outstanding Officers, across MDAs were recognized and rewarded.

While urging participants to exhibit due diligence in the selection process, he encouraged them to use the five (5) Core Values of the Service, Accountability, Meritocracy, Professionalism, Loyalty, Efficiency as criteria for specific awards. He, thereafter, introduced the composition of the Ministerial Award Selection Committee meant to establish a seamless selection and screening process for the nomination of awardees. They include the Director, Human Resource Management (HRM) as Chairman; Director, Reform, Coordination and Service Improvement and two (2) other Directors to be appointed by the Permanent Secretary; a representative of the Permanent Secretary’s Office; a representative of the Joint Labour Union in the MDA; a representative of relevant Corporate Partner as Members and the Deputy Director, Staff Welfare and Training as Secretary.

The Permanent Secretary encouraged participants to come up with robust and fruitful decisions that will elicit positive outcomes, while recognising the unflinching support and partnership of some Private Sector Organisations such as the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation that instituted an endowment fund of five hundred thousand naira (N500, 000.00) each for the awardees, annually, and the Consortium of Insurance Companies that donated a brand new GAC SUV as the Star Prize for the 2022 Civil Service Week Awards.

Four (4) papers were presented at the workshop to reshape the thoughts of the participants towards their role in R&RS. They covered: Efficient Couching and Mentorship: Panacea for Sustainable Transformation of the Service; Sports as a Booster to Productivity in the Civil Service; Performance Management and Ethics as Criteria for Determining Excellence in the Civil Service and Transparency and Fairness in Government Business.

M. A. Ahmed,
Director, Communication.
22nd June, 2023.