FG Unveils Federal Public Service Entrepreneurship Programme

Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja

The federal government yesterday in Abuja launched the Federal Public Service Entrepreneurship Programme (FPSEP), to prepare workers for life after retirement.

The Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Dr. Folasade Yemi-Esan, said her dream was for the emergence of a skillful and more productive workforce that would contribute meaningfully to the development of the country as employees as well as employers of labour within the provisions of extant rules.

Yemi-Esan, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Service Welfare Office, Dr. Ngozi Onwudiwe, tasked civil servants to plug the knowledge garnered from their training at FPSEP into agriculture and other business ventures that would enable them to create multiple sources of income for self-sustenance while in service and after exiting the service.

She encouraged the trainees to take advantage of these laudable programmes and ensure they get maximum value for money invested by their respective organisations to develop their human capital.

Yemi- Esan said the setting up of the agripreneurship start-up scheme was premised on the provisions of Section 2(b) Part 1 of the Fifth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, which permits Nigerian public servants to engage in farming while in service.

A pre-retirement training and business start-up scheme was also incorporated into the FPSEP which was a sub-initiative of one of the six pillars of the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan 2021 – 2025 (also known as FCSSIP 25).

The pre-retirement training and business start-up scheme tailored towards preparing public servants for life post-service by providing opportunities for them to acquire new skills for new career choices.

According to her, the public service entrepreneurship programme was developed out of the need to pay greater attention to the welfare of the public servants who constituted the administrative machinery for implementing government policies and programmes.

She stressed that some aspects of the programme create window for those in service to earn supplementary income to improve their quality of life, enable those retiring to cope with life after service while at the same time contributing to the development of the other sectors of the economy and by implication increase the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country.