Competent civil service will drive Nigeria’s economy to prosperity – Minister

The Minister of Transportation, Engr Muazu Jaji Sambo, has said no nation functions without capable civil service thus a productive civil service will drive Nigeria’s economy into prosperity.

He stated this at his first town hall meeting and excellence award for staff of the ministry held on Tuesday in Abuja.

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Twenty high-performing officers received the Ministerial Service Award of Excellence on Dedication to Duty. Amongst them were the Deputy Director of Press, Mrs Anastasia Ogbonna, and Mr. Desmond Agyo, also of the Press and Public Relations Unit of the ministry.

“I’m one of those who believe strongly in the fact that no nation functions without a capable workforce. The civil service of every nation is the bedrock of progress and development. A capable, well-motivated civil service will propel any nation to attain whatever level it wants to attend,” the minister said.

He said the award is to spur staff to do more as going forward only staff who met their key performance indicators will get rewarded and promoted.

“I want to use this medium to encourage staff to be solution providers. What we did today is to put a stamp of recognition on deserving workers. I am happy this is something that happens every year and going forward, there is a new process of measuring performance in the civil service, which has already started,” he said.

At the end of this year, the new system will be used to evaluate staff and no longer the old system, he added.  

He also assured the staff that their welfare would be improved incentives. “I can assure you that we all mean well for the staff. As for palliatives, the permanent secretary and I have discussed it and we are going to do something about it.”

Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transportation, Mrs. Ajani, said there is no going back on the newly introduced Performance Management System (PMS).

She said by “December 31st, all the staff PMS reports will go to the Head of Service and that will feed into their promotion for 2023 as there is no more APA.”

She thus charged the staff to take their jobs seriously as no two individual staff would be accessed on the same indicators.

She said as from next year, the continuous performance management assessment will determine the staff to be awarded and not a committee as was the case this year.