The Federal Government on Thursday attributed failure in Civil Service delivery to lack of skilled manpower, poor communication at planning and implementation stages, among others.
Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HOCSF), made this disclosure in a statement the Director, Press and Public Relations, by Mr AbdulGaniyu Aminu, in Abuja.
Yemi-Esan said this while delivering a virtual lecture on “Public Service Reform Programme Implementation in Nigeria”.
The lecture was for the participants of Senior Executive Course No. 43 of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru in Jos.
To improve upon the civil service, Yemi-Esan stressed the need to put a strict system in place to attract and bring the best personnel into the service through “Public Service Reforms”, to revive the situation.
According to her, the practice in the past whereby the civil service was seen as a welfare institution to recruit all manner of people to mitigate unemployment crisis, is unwholesome.
She explained that the objective of public service reform, was to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the service, to promote economic and social development.
According to her, Nigeria has been carrying out various reform since independence in 1960, to achieve national development.
She opined that any reform worth implementing should first, be subjected to purpose wide-consultation, commitment, and sustainability.
“In spite of various reform programmes initiated in the past, implementation has always been the bane,” she noted.
The Head of Service listed factors responsible for such failures of past reforms to include, poor funding and inadequate provision in Ministries, Departments and Agencies to fund implementation of reforms.
Others, she listed were lack of skilled manpower, poor communication at planning and implementation stages, poor or total lack of ownership of reforms by state and poor subnational coordination of reforms.
According to her, poor involvement of citizens, lack of synergy between public and private sector organisations, lack of synergy amongst implementing MDAs policy, rivalry, and conflict of interest amongst institutions; are also major factors.
“Lack of political will to implement of reforms, resistance to change, poor ICT infrastructure and political interference among others, have also been seen as factors responsible for the failures.
Yemi-Esan assured that the new reform programme in the service, “Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan (FCSSIP) 2017 to 2020, derived from the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, would serve as ” Game Changer” in the service.
In addition, the inclusion of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) vision, would also address economic, social, and environmental sustainability issues in the service reform. (NAN)