RSG Harps On Quality Civil Service

Rivers State Governor, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, has expressed concern over the quality of manpower in the public service. Amaechi made the remarks yesterday while receiving the report of the committee for the re-engineering of the Rivers State Public Service. He noted that the need to shore-up its productive capacity for effective service delivery, necessitated the setting up of the committee in September.

Represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Mr George D. N. Feyii, Amaechi observed that contrary to best practices as prevalent in advanced economies like Britain and the United States of America, where only the best brains go to the civil service, the nation’s civil service system was generally faced with a situation in which the most brilliant personnel were not seen to be taking up relevant job roles in the system.

According to him, the general trend in the job profile of the country was that the brightest minds had preference for the banking sector and the oil industry as destination points, with recourse to the civil service as last resort when they could not find opportunities elsewhere.

He emphasized the need for a sustainable and result-oriented civil service system, saying, “it is the engine that drives the government of the day and the critical sector that makes inputs to policy formulation.”

While praising the committee for a job well done, the governor said the quality of policy formulation and the effective implementation of policies of government were fundamental in quality service delivery and that civil servants were active agents in the realisation of the objective of driving the wheel of government towards positive direction through their valid advice and guidance.

He, however, assured that government would carefully study the committee’s report and do all that was desirable in achieving the objectives for which the committee was set-up.

Earlier, the Chairman of the 10-member committee, who is also a retired permanent secretary in the state’s Civil Service, Mr Chris Obinna, had outlined some of the factors militating against effective service delivery in the state’s public service as, lack of the knowledge of job functions on the part of workers, absence of target and bench marks and lack of adequate supervision, monitoring and evaluation.

He decried the current situation in which experienced hands were retiring from the service without replacements, leaving the system largely with inexperienced hands.