The Head of the Federal Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winifred Ekanem Oyo-Ita, has expressed the need for Permanent Secretaries to perform their roles as administrative heads, policy advisers and accounting officers in ways that will minimise areas of conflict.
Mrs. Oyo-Ita made this declaration during the opening ceremony of the 2-day Induction Training Programme for Federal Permanent Secretaries in Abuja on Friday, 20th April, 2018.
According to the Head of Service the roles of Permanent Secretaries come with lot of challenges, especially in this era of dwindling financial resources and escalating competing demands. There is however need to manage these roles for efficient service delivery.
She said there are gaps observed between Permanent Secretaries and other Stakeholders in Public Sector Administration that need to be filled to minimise areas of conflict. The opportunity of the induction programme to discuss freely and proffer solutions to issues that affect smooth running of MDAs is therefore a welcome development.
In his goodwill message, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service, Senator Pauker Emmanuel said the training was timely given the need to address the declining mutual trust and confidence in the working relationship between stakeholders in Public Administration and Permanent Secretaries.
He emphasized the need to create a concrete stakeholder engagement platform to identify basic relationship challenges in the budget process, policy development, implementation of the public sector reforms as well as government commitment towards fiscal discipline and accountability in public expenditure management.
Speaking in the same vein, the Ag. Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Hon. Simon Etim, said Permanent Secretaries who are major role players in the Administration Change Agenda, must work hard to improve the bureaucracy in terms of staff dedication to duty, efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, accountability and selfless service.
Hon Etim implored the Permanent Secretaries to bring to the table their experience, positive initiatives, quality advice, matured handling of sensitive and volatile situation, timely response to directives and strong commitments to uphold the ethics and values of the Civil Service.
