FCSC charges State civil service commissions on innovations, new ideas
The Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) has charged State civil service commissions on innovations and strategies in the implementation of public policies.
Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Tunji Olaopa, gave the charge during the courtesy call by the Chairman, Yobe State Civil Service Commission and the Permanent Secretaries Commission and of Ministry of Establishment and Training, in Abuja.
Olaopa explained that the Commission has wantonly compromised the philosophical construct of the first principle of its founding by the British in 1855 in the way it goes about its work, adding “We have compromised merit not just on the altar of federal character diversity management praxis. We did in the way we submit our constitutional independence helplessness to the whims and caprices of our political lord and masters, largely because, as professionals, we have lost the capacity to speak truth to power as it was in Nigeria in the 1960s through to the mid-70s”.
He added that there is need to inject new ideas, strategies and instruments into how the civil service carries out its responsibilities, adding that the Commission cannot afford to fail in its onerous generational responsibility under the President Bola Tinubu administration.
He lamented ” Indeed, the civil service unknowingly faces an existential crisis. Consulting firms, external policy experts, and think tanks, that should complement our work, are taking over our core functions, due to low institutional capability readiness of MDAs, and we are carried away by our empty held powers as accounting officers and chief administrative officers”.
Olaopa stated ” In terms of our core remit, the civil service in Nigeria currently demonstrate palpable evidence of the worst kinds of bureaucratic corruption largely due to institutional weaknesses that enable officers to exploit systemic loopholes, on the one hand.
“And the breakdown of inherited internal management controls systems that requires reforms to beef up bureaucratic efficiency and modernise our standard operation practices, on the other. Yet our disciplinary processes and appeals procedures are comatose. Ditto with our system of promoting officers as career management, which sadly still rely on an annual performance reporting (APER) system that measure nothing concrete”.
