RSG Plans Retraining For Finance Officers

The state government has announced plans to boost the knowledge of civil servants within its workforce.

The state Commissioner for Finance Chamberlain Peterside stated this in an interview with newsmen in Port Harcourt.

He said part of the plan was to conduct training for civil servants in the professional areas of accounting and finance with a view to updating them with international public sector accounting practices.

The commissioner said that the state Ministry of Finance was working with the Federal Government to gradually transit to International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) by the year 2013.

He said that the training of such professional civil servants will be held at Tinapa Business Resort Calabar in August 2012, in partnership with the state government and a renowned global financial training company, Euro money Training of London.  According to him, the training will be conducted for two separate sessions.

Peterside said the participants at the training will be drawn from the account department as core professionals of all Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

He said the trainees as core professional would be exposed to key concepts based on accrual methods rather than the prevailing current cash methods of accounting by the civil servants.

“This training exercise is very crucial to the effort of the administration of the Executive Governor of Rivers State, Rt Hon Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi in further developing human capacity in the public service as well as building desired and solid institutions of sustainable democratic governance” he said.

The commissioner further said that by training the core professional account officers civil servants to acquire the requisite skills and knowledge of modern public finance practices, the state would systematically engender higher levels of transparency and accountability of public funds, while adhering to global best practices.

Philip Okparaji