EU gives FG N4.6bn for civil service reforms
Federal Government’s reform programme in the civil service has received a boost from the European Union with the provision of N4.6bn for policy development in the public sector.
The Supervising Minister of National Planning, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, made this known during the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding and inauguration of the project steering committee for the EU Support to Federal Government Reform Programme in Nigeria.
A statement from the ministry on Wednesday said Yuguda identified the beneficiary agencies as the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, the Bureau of Public Service Reform, National Planning Commission, National Bureau of Statistics and the Federal Inland Revenue Service.
In the statement, the minister noted that efforts would be made to ensure that the project was implemented as planned as well as “achieves the desired objectives and results.”
This, he said, would go a long way to assist Nigeria in achieving its developmental goals articulated in the Nigeria’s Vision 20: 2020 and the transformation agenda.
He recalled that the Federal Government had commenced the implementation of the National Strategy for Public Service Reform in 2008, after it recognised that the weakness of the public service had negatively affected its ability to deliver social services and achieve the objectives of its long-term policy framework.
Yuguda revealed that, the government’s 2010 Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Report noted that the marginal gains recorded by the public service reforms were not sufficient to carry the service to the next level, despite the successes recorded in the implementation of this strategy in the past three years.
He stated further that weak technical competences of key specialised agencies had made planning and forecasting less reliable and effective.
Source: Leadership.ng
