LIST OF HEADS OF THE CIVIL SERVICE OF THE FEDERATION 1961-2014.
Reforming
the Nigerian civil Service
Since
colonial times, attempts have been made at major administrative reforms. The
Udoji Reform of 1974 recommended the adoption of new management techniques,
such as Management-by-Objectives and Programme and Performance-based Budgeting,
and higher remuneration packages
commensurate with that of the private sector. The military government of the
day chose to implement the increase in wages, but not the new management
techniques. The 1988 Civil Service reform programme, known as the Dotun
Phillips Reforms, took away the power of permanent secretaries as accounting
officers of their ministries and vested that power in Ministers. It politicised
the role of the permanent secretary and tied the tenure of permanent
secretaries to that of the administration that appointed them. This effectively
destroyed the independence of the Civil Service and entrenched a culture of arbitrariness
that flowed from the military government of the day. The Ayida Reform of 1995
reversed the tenets of the 1988 reforms, restored the Permanent Secretary as
the accounting officer in the Ministry and restored the post as a career,
rather than political, appointment. However, beyond reversing the 1988
initiatives, it did not move the service much further forward. It did not
arrest the rot that had set in by then, recapture the independence that had
been lost or rekindle the core values in the chests of civil servants. The
wound inflicted by the military on the psyche of the service was too deep.
The
President Olusegun Obasanjo government made serious attempts to renew the
public service and place it within the context of a wider government reform
agenda. The main thrusts of the reform efforts were to modernise core
operations using information and communication technology, increase the accountability
of public servants to citizens, reduce waste and inefficiency, consolidate
various allowances and fringe benefits into salaries, computerise payrolls and
introduce a contributory pension scheme. However, there was an attempt to force
certain initiatives through, rather than to win hearts and minds and it did not
help that the first major initiative associated with the reforms was a
large-scale redundancy exercise, mostly at the lower cadres of the service. It
also did not help that the Bureau of Public Service Reforms that was supposed
to coordinate all reform efforts badly lost its way.
In
2008, a comprehensive programme of reforms was articulated in a ‘National
Strategy for Public Service Reforms.’ Its vision is ‘a world- class public
service delivering government policies and programmes with professionalism,
excellence and passion.’ Using the Strategy, the Office of the Head of Service,
the National Planning Commission, the Office of the Secretary to the Government
of the Federation and the entire Public Financial Management sector, including
the Ministry of Finance, Budget Office of the Federation and the Office of the
Accountant General of the Federation made significant efforts to improve the
operations of the public service as a whole. This strategy has recently been
refreshed and updated, awaiting formal adoption by the Federal Executive
Council.
Significantly,
the President Goodluck Jonathan Administration set up a Presidential Committee
on the Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Agencies,
Parastatals and Commissions, popularly known as the ‘Oransaye Committee.’ It
similarly set up a committee headed by former Head of Service, Alhaji Adamu
Fika, to look at ways of repositioning the service. Government has produced a
White Paper in response to the Oransaye Committee report and is currently doing
the same in response to the report of the Fika Committee. Government has also
reconstituted the National Steering Committee on Public Service Reforms,
chaired by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, with the Head of
the Civil Service of the Federation as Vice Chairman. This apex body for the
coordination of all public service reforms (including civil service reform) had
not me since 2008. With the support of the current Head of Service, Government
has additionally taken steps to revamp the Bureau of Public Service Reforms to
ensure that it can fulfil its mandate of coordinating the reforms.
The
Nigerian Civil Service is led by the Head of the Civil Service of the
Federation. The post-holder attends the Federal Executive Council and is
responsible for striking the right balance between the need for due process and
the need for political office holders to deliver development quickly to the
electorate. Since the return to democratic rule in 1999, successive Heads of
Service have made efforts to recapture the essence of the civil service and
return it to the well-functioning institution that it was at the turn of
independence. Each Head of Service has moved the Service forward in some way.
However, at the time that they are elevated to the post of Head of Service they
tend not to have very long time left to serve before they have to retire,
either on the ground of reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60 years or
the mandatory service limit of 35 years. This has meant that the country has
had six Heads of the Civil Service of the Federation in the last six years, as
shown in the table in the previous page.
This
has meant, therefore, that a Head of Service that wants to make tangible impact
has to focus on a few transformational and catalytic initiatives and fast-track
their implementation. Notable examples are the ‘Monetisation’ policy that
greatly reduced the cost of governance, and the ‘Tenure’ policy that unblocked
the bottleneck at the top of the Service. More recently, the OHCSF has divested
itself of its non-core functions in an attempt to focus more strategically on
the leadership of the Civil Service as an institution, and performance
management.
This
book sets out the reforms that the current Head of the Civil Service of the
Federation, Alhaji Bukar Goni Aji, OON, has undertaken in the 15 months that he
has been in post. Many of these reforms are catalytic, rather than
comprehensive. Perhaps most significantly, divesting the OHCSF of the functions
now being performed by the Pensions Transition Arrangement Department (PTAD)
and the Bureau of Public Service Reforms have set off a chain of events which
should hopefully help the service. While it is true that these and many other
reform efforts are promising initiatives, it will be necessary to properly and
independently evaluate their success in a few years time to see what impact
these reforms have made. Having the courage to make the difficult decisions was
an important first step.
(book authored by BPSR)
No comments:
Post a Comment