Southwest Heads of Service Seek to Deepen on Governance Reforms

January 15, 2020 04:11:56 PM Published by: PERL
   
 The Deputy Governor of Ekiti State, Otunba Bisi Egbeyemi, addressing SW Heads of Service    The Ekiti State Head of Service, Mr Ayodeji Ajayi (5th right) with other dignitaries at the 11th Heads of Service Forum in Ado-Ekiti.

Heads of Service (HoS) from the six states of Southwest Nigeria held their 11th forum to deliberate on, share lessons and deepen the governance reforms initiated across the region. The forum was hosted by Ekiti State Government, led by Governor Kayode Fayemi who was represented by the Deputy Governor, Otunba Bisi Egbeyemi. The forum was supported by DFID-PERL and facilitated by DAWN Commission. Present at the event were high-level policy makers and policy implementers across the region, including the Ekiti State Executive Council, former Heads of Service from Ekiti and Ondo States, Secretary to Ekiti State Government, Head Ekiti Council of Obas, Chief of Staff to Ekiti State Government and Permanent Secretaries from the region whose MDAs collaborate on governance reforms.

The forum provides a strategic platform for drivers of the public service to engage and collaboratively discuss development within the region. It is a platform for continuous sharing, learning and replication of good practices among states for regional integration in civil and public service.

Declaring the gathering open, Governor Fayemi, represented by his Deputy, Otunba Bisi Egbeyemi, emphasised that the civil service in Ekiti State is anchored on excellence, competence, integrity and participatory service. In its pursuit of better service delivery based on competence, Ekiti State Ministry of Education and the State Universal Basic Education Board, working with the Office of Head of Service is recruiting 2,000 additional teachers for primary and secondary schools across the state to facilitate the building of the knowledge economy that will thrust the state into a greater future. This recruitment comes as a practical follow-up to the last HoS forum held in April 2019. Another follow-up since the last forum is the capacity-building and training of 955 officers on various professional skills, which has helped to improve competence and informed a more efficient service delivery in the health, education, infrastructure and agriculture sectors.

Ekiti State is taking lessons from other states on governance reforms across the region, placing priority on objectivity, equity and merit-based appointment into public service, through the introduction of the Civil Service Transformation Strategy agenda, anchored by the Office of Transformation, Strategy and Delivery (OTSD), the reform coordinating agency of Ekiti State. According to the Head of Service of the State, Mr Ayodeji Ajayi, the Office of the Secretary to the State Government, the Civil Service Commission and the Head of Service holds tripartite biannual meetings to foster effective working relationships and harmonise information. As a result, frictions among the three offices have significantly reduced, leading to greater confidence in the offices from the masses. Professionalisation of civil service is a reform being implemented. Apart from the required registration with the Council for Registration of Engineers in Nigeria (COREN) and the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), membership of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and other similar certifications as recognised by law, has been made a requirement for promotion within accounting-related cadres in the state. This lesson is to be increasingly adopted within the Civil Service by other states across the region.

To further enhance competence, training centres like the Public Service Training Institute (PSTI) in Ondo State and Simon Adebo Staff Development Centre (SASDC) in Oyo State are increasingly being supported to carry out their mandate of training civil servants, developing skills and encouraging professionalism. The Director-General of PSTI, Mr. Kayode Ogundele shared on how the centre has been revamped with a business model to produce technologically-savvy civil servants and for income generation. According to Mr. Ogundele, the institute generated NGN 2.1m for Ondo State Government in 2018, expecting to generate a higher revenue in 2019.

Creating better conditions for Reform Coordinating Agencies (RCAs) to thrive in their functions was another lesson shared at the forum. Taking a leaf from Ekiti OTSD and linking with Ogun Public Service Transformation Office (PSTO), other states resolved to establish and/or strengthen their RCAs to continually improve the standards of service delivery across states in the region.

PERL continues to work with DAWN Commission to support governance reforms across Southwest Nigeria. Working with the six states of the region, PERL and DAWN engage with diverse platforms across different sectors to encourage, track, monitor and share positive reforms that lead to better service delivery in Southwest Nigeria.