Federal Civil Service undergoes restructuring, says Oyo-Ita

By Ese Awhotu

The Federal Civil Service is being repositioned to become world-class service that would be innovative and proactive in policies and programmes implementation towards national development, the Head of the Federal Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita has said.
A statement signed by Timothy Akpoili, AD (Media Relations) For: Director (Communications) and made available to the Peoples Daily yesterday, said Oyo-Ita, stated this when she briefed the media on the achievements of the Office yesterday, in Abuja.
According to her, strategies have been put in place over the last one year geared towards restoring integrity and dignity in the service.
She explained that to achieve the objective of making the civil service innovative, a Strategic Implementation Plan (2017 – 2020), with eight priority areas, namely: design of 3-core training module to improve staff competencies across all grade levels, strategic sourcing of identified skills through partnership to infuse external talents into the service, result-based institutionalized performance management to enhance merit, Business innovation in service through innovation units established in MDAs amongst others, were developed.
Enumerating the achievements, the Head of Service said that the Human Resource Module of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information system, when fully operational, will ensure accurate data of all Federal Civil Servants and reduce wastage.
She said in order to ensure optimum manning level in the MDAs and also to obtain necessary data on the size of the workforce of MDAs, the 2017 Manpower Budget Exercise was successfully concluded with the issuance of Authorized Establishment to MDAs that participated in the exercise in May, 2017.
On the issue of capacity in the service, the Head of Service said that the Office successfully resuscitated the Departmental Training Officers (DTOs) forum in June, 2017. The primary purpose of the Forum, she said, is to serve as the main vehicle for the implementation of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation’s Training programme across the MDAs to enhance capacity building in the civil service.
Speaking further on enhancing professionalism and meritocracy in the Civil service, Oyo-Ita said that a Performance Management System (PMS) policy guidelines and tools have been developed to drive efficiency in the system.
Also, she said that the second phase of the review of the Public Service Rules has been concluded preparatory to the final review while the review of Scheme of Service for the Federation.
On the issue of improved welfare and benefit packages for Civil Servants, the Head of the Civil Service said that the Federal Integrated Staff Housing (FISH) Programme established to afford civil servants own their homes is on course.
She said that the FISH programme was launched in 2016 under Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative. The idea behind the scheme is that relevant bodies; namely Ministry of Finance, Federal Capital Territory and Ministry of Power, Works and Housing will assist and provide the required inputs to reduce the cost of houses thereby making them affordable within affordability index.
“ Already, more than 20 developers have been selected and their 1500 housing units of 2, 3 and 4 bedrooms have been uploaded into the FISH scheme for immediate purchase by civil servants. Over 23,000 applications have been received and are being processed,” she noted.