Olaopa Lists Ways to Reform  Civil Service, Harps on Mentorship

The Chairman,  the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, yesterday listed some measures that can be taken to reform the civil service and make it viable.

Olaopa spoke in Abuja  during a courtesy visit by the Head of  Service of Taraba State, Mr Paul Tino.

He recalled that he had been part of the conversation to raise the bar of professionalism of fellow bureaucrats in the Taraba State civil service twice, saying he was proud of the passion to learn new ideas by the civil servants he engaged at the two training seminars in the past.

He said that civil servants can regain their prestige if  they are deliberate, committed and focused  on  their  drive to re-professionalise through reinventing the service as a value-based profession and calling.

“By all means we should help the government to unbundle its entire expenditure structure, redundancies and waste which will extend to the administrative side to the restructuring of our bloated federation and expensive presidential system,” he said.

 Olaopa however  cautioned against boxing the government to “financial commitments that make the workforce in the organised sector of the economy to continue to consume the bulk of national wealth with the bulk of Nigerian tax payers ignored and emasculated in perpetual poverty.”

Consequently , he noted that there was an imperative for gradual rethinking of the intellectual bases of skills for managing the business of government which will in turn inform the restructuring of the civil service cadres.

“Besides, this will demand the development of competencies catalogue and specification of the generic skills required by officers on each grade level in measure that serves as the basis for training, capacity development, career cum talent management, capacity utilization, leadership pipelining and succession planning “, he said.

The seasoned bureaucrat stressed  that  it was now urgent and critical for the civil service to strengthen strategic partnerships with non-state actors in the national economy. 

He identified the most critical  in this regard as  the need to build civil servants commercial skills and exposure to the working of the private sector given  their  shared responsibility as the engine of growth of the economy.

“We need more enabling regulatory frameworks that do not stand in the way of the productivity of businesses. Indeed, we need to engraft our numerous administrative governance codes, rules and regulations with good corporate governance principles and practices to enable seamless working synergies with the industry “, he stated.

Olaopa  also highlighted the need to deepen mentoring, coaching,  and staff exchange that enables internships, sabbatical leaves, and the flow of ideas and good practices from other sectors in measures that minimize inbreeding and insularity of the public administration system.

“The need to build skills for enhanced collaborative remodelling of politics-administration relationships is becoming an issue to take seriously so the capacity of the civil service as game changer is deepened and consolidated as we work to support political and governance reforms and overall performance levels of our governments and Nigeria’s global competitiveness.

“Overall, the spirit of deferred gratification, public spiritedness which elevates public service into a calling in the service of higher purpose, one that eschews the entitlement culture of something for nothing that is at the root of bureaucratic corruption and service’s loss of public trust which we must work hard to restore”, he said