INDISCRIMINATE promotions and declaration of staff vacancies by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) will no longer be tolerated, and henceforth, any officer found wanting will be severely punished, the Federal Government declared yesterday.
“It is the responsibility of the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation to declare vacancies in the civil service. Due to a number of historical reasons, the office has not always fulfilled its known responsibilities in line with the extant rules and guidelines on appointment, promotion and discipline,” the Head of Service of the Federation (HOSF), Danladi Kifasi, said.
He noted that such lapses had given rise to a number of MDAs declaring vacancies - both for fresh entrants and promotion - while sending them directly to the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) without recourse to available resources in the budget.
Kifasi spoke in Abuja during a meeting with permanent secretaries, directors of finance and accounts, heads of procurements, as well as directors of human resources. According to him, any senior officer found wanting in this regard would be sanctioned because such actions cause serious shortfalls in annual budget provisions for personnel cost, especially with regards to meeting promotion and advancement obligations.
Now that the 2015 budget is already before the National Assembly, he urged directors of human resources management in MDAs to identify vacancies in professional and administrative cadres and convey same to the Office of Head of Service before the end of March.
On the cancellation of foreign trainings for civil servants, the HOSF explained that “the Federal Government has been concerned for some time that Nigeria might not be getting best value for money from the bulk of international training programmes attended by public servants.
More so, he noted, “the knowledge supposedly gained at these foreign training programmes has not readily translated into improvement in the way we render services to people. We have observed that Nigeria’s contingent to international engagements tend to be one of the largest, with several senior government officials flying first class at government expense.”
He added that the recent economic downturn has focused government’s mind more sharply on the need to reduce the cost of governance. However, he disclosed that instead of the foreign trainings, government was packaging local alternative avenues to build capacity in the civil service.
“We have concluded the design of a structured, mandatory training programme on general capacity building and that of leadership development,” he said. “The general capacity building programme is for all officers on GL 06-17 in the Federal Civil Service.
“This, we hope, will commence in March 2015 and will focus on equipping our civil service, while the leadership development programme is for selected officers on GL 08-17 to develop the capacity for leadership at various levels of the service, and the criteria for selection would include leadership potential, innovation, high performance and exemplary conduct.”
Meanwhile, he revealed that government has assembled a team of management development institutes - ASCON, PSIN and CMD - to develop a framework for the scheme and assured that government was still very committed to staff welfare, especially in the area of house ownership.
And following the flag-off of the National Workers Housing Estate last December, “a circular containing a list of private housing developers willing to partner the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board in delivering quality, affordable houses to federal public servants has been issued,” he said.
He urged the director of human resources to get all necessary details concerning the various housing packages from the housing loans board and ensure that their members of staff are well informed could benefit accordingly.
Source: ngrguardian
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