The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Bukar Goni Aji has announced the creation of two new departments in some strategic ministries in the Federal Civil Service – the Department of Reform Coordination and Service Improvement as well as General Services Department.
He revealed this during the interactive session with Directors of Administration in the Federal Civil Service held recently at the Auditorium of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja.
Bukar Goni Aji explained that the creation of the new departments is in line with the efforts of Government to improve service delivery and ensure sustainability in the initiatives of the current reforms through deployment of highly skilled manpower. Adding, the Director in the Permanent Secretary’s Office would be responsible for the coordination and supervision of MDAs as well as liaising with the National Assembly.
He also revealed that the National Records Centre has been reinvigorated and upgraded into an Office to be headed by a Director.
While briefing the Directors on the restructuring of the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Goni Aji said that with the assistance of development partners, particularly the Federal Public Administration Reform (FEPAR) of the United Kingdom Department of International Development (DFID), some achievements have been made in the office.
Aji further mentioned the achievements as including: the consolidation of twenty-six departments, supervised by six Permanent Secretaries into thirteen departments with three Permanent Secretaries; the establishment of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Department (PTAD) and the appointment of a Director-General to manage the pension liabilities in the old pension scheme as required by the Pension Reform Act of 2004, in order to enhance efficiency; approval of a Director-General for the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) to deepen the reform exercise; the introduction of the Permanent Secretary Peer Review Exercise to enable top level management assess performance contracts for propagation of best practices and the enrolment of 111,000 core civil servants from 274 ministries on the IPPIS platform.
The process of IPPIS enrolment, he said is ongoing towards meeting the deadline just as a human resource business model is being packaged to ensure the smooth migration of staff records.
Speaking on the visits of Permanent Secretaries to the Federal Civil Servants in the States, the Head of Service noted that this was to enable government assess the federal secretariats in the States and plan for their rehabilitation. He added that his office is working with MDAs for the creation of toll free GSM lines to ensure ease in communication between the headquarters and staff in the States.
The Head of Service urged the Directors to persevere on their loyalty and to project the positive image of government at all times. “Directors are focal officers whose roles are critical to the success of not just the current Transformation Agenda of government, but sustenance of the reform programmes in the Federal Civil Service.
According to him, a total of one hundred and ten officers were promoted to the status of Directors of Administration in the last promotion exercise conducted by the Federal Civil Service Commission. Adding, this is the largest in recent times. He challenged the elevated officers to reciprocate with better service delivery.
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