At annual retreat for federal permanent secretaries, HOS calls for renewed commitment to service delivery.

The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Alhaji Bukar Goni Aji has called on Federal Permanent Secretaries to renew their commitment to the realization of effective and efficient service delivery in the Civil Service.

The Head of Service said this when he addressed the Permanent Secretaries at the end of a 2 – day retreat held in Lagos.

He said further that the Federal Government has set out robust initiatives in the Transformation Agenda aimed at rapid socio-economic development of the country and this has placed a lot of implementation responsibilities on Civil Servants, especially the Permanent Secretaries as Chief Accounting Officers of the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

Alhaji Goni Aji pointed out that the success of the initiative in service delivery will depend on the ability of Permanent Secretaries to interpret Government policies that will transform the programmes into projects which will ultimately improve the lives of our citizens.

During the course of the 2 – day retreat, Permanent Secretaries discussed issues relating to the Public Procurement Act of 2007; budget implementation; the National Strategy for Public Service Reforms; Relationship Management between Permanent Secretaries, Honourable Ministers, Directors and the Labour Unions, and the new Civil Service policies on employee mobility and records management.

At the end of the retreat, some resolutions were made particularly on the procurement process which included the following:

a) Procurement entities should commence their procurement plans, if they have not already done so, using the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) planning software for which access can be granted on request by BPP.
b) All procurement plans should henceforth be supported by proper needs assessment.
c) Standard conditions of contract as contained in the standard bidding document should henceforth be used for all tenders.
d) Procurements entities should submit their 2013 procurement records by the 31st March, 2014 in accordance with Section 16 (13) of the Act.
e) Contractors to MDAs should be encouraged to register on the national database of Federal contractors and service providers.
f) The media must begin to see itself as a strategic partner in governance and nation building, and therefore avoid sensational reporting which sometimes has negative consequences to the nation.
g) The retreat agreed that there is need for the BPP to sustain the ongoing interactive sessions with the CEOs/DGs of Federal Government Parastatals and Agencies to improve budget implementation.
The retreat noted with satisfaction the continued support and confidence and non-interference in the Public Procurement process by President Goodluck Jonathan as well as his support to the BPP towards implementing the procurement reforms in Nigeria’s development efforts.

Federal Ministry of Information (FMI) Press Release