MDAs should prioritise capability constructing in public service reforms – BPSR DG

Director-Normal, Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Dasuki Arabi, explains the significance of capability constructing within the revamp of Nigeria’s Civil Service methods on this interview with DANIEL ADAJI

To what extent have public service reforms improved the MDAs and benefitted Nigerians?

Thanks very a lot for permitting me to talk to Nigerians by way of you.

The Bureau of Public Service Reforms was established in 2004 to, amongst different issues, provoke, drive, monitor, and consider reforms and assess the impression of reforms—whether or not they have been initiated by us or by different ministries, departments, and businesses of presidency.

You’ll recall that when former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s authorities took over, one of many situations for writing off Nigeria’s debt was for the Nigerian authorities to reform its public service. I hyperlink the creation of the BPSR to that motion, in addition to the institution of SERVICOM and different businesses.

From the creation of Nigeria beneath colonial rule to the 1999 and 2004 reforms, we’ve had about 14 to fifteen public service reforms.

Our technique is encapsulated within the Nationwide Technique on Public Service Reforms. This doc was produced by BPSR in collaboration with useful resource individuals from varied sectors of Nigerian society. I’m proud to let you know that this technique is ours, created by Nigerians and being carried out by Nigerians, in distinction to different methods which have been borrowed from outdoors.

The Nationwide Technique on Public Service Reforms has 4 pillars.

Pillar one focuses on the governance atmosphere. Our aim right here is to enhance transparency and accountability, battle corruption, and forestall corruption earlier than it occurs. Whereas BPSR initiates these reforms, the Workplace of the Secretary to the Authorities and different businesses are accountable for their implementation.

Pillar two addresses nationwide growth plans. For a few years, Nigeria lacked nationwide growth plans, however BPSR has labored with the Minister of Price range and Nationwide Planning and the Minister of Finance to provide the present growth plans. We now have Key Efficiency Indicators and a roadmap, permitting us to evaluate progress towards our nationwide growth objectives. This can be a optimistic growth for Nigeria, because it permits us to generate helpful knowledge.

Pillar three focuses on public monetary administration. From the outset, we aimed to undertake expertise in managing authorities sources. The instruments developed by BPSR, resembling IPPIS, the Treasury Single Account, and Financial institution Verification Quantity, have all enhanced transparency, improved effectivity, diminished the price of governance, and allowed non-government actors to interact with authorities processes. The Treasury Single Account ensures all authorities income is collected into one account, making it simpler to trace and handle.

With IPPIS, authorities employees can not change their appointment dates, beginning dates, or private particulars. As soon as an individual is employed within the federal civil service, their biometrics are captured, making alterations unattainable. This method permits us to precisely observe workers salaries, promotions, and changes.

We now have additionally developed an ecosystem the place contractors and suppliers should meet procurement necessities, together with tax compliance. All businesses now work electronically, eliminating the necessity for paper and guide processes.

Pillar 4 focuses on civil service administration and administration. Civil servants are the spine of public service, and we’re working to strengthen, practice, and upskill them for Twenty first-century public service. In collaboration with the Workplace of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, we’ve launched efficiency administration, succession planning, and mentorship programmes.

Gone are the times when staff would merely present as much as work with out accountability. Beneath the efficiency administration system, civil and public servants might be held accountable for his or her work. Each MDA has KPIs and commonplace working procedures to information efficiency assessments.

As a part of this, we’re driving the digitalisation of public service. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, when there have been issues about how the Federal Government Council might meet, digital instruments allowed us to proceed working. Our aim is for all MDAs to turn into paperless by 2030, however we hope to attain this even sooner.

Over the previous 30 years, Nigeria’s public service has undergone important modifications. We now have collaborated with civil society, governments, {and professional} associations to boost transparency and battle corruption. One of many initiatives is the scorecard programme, which ranks the efficiency of MDAs primarily based on their web sites and their capability to offer data and companies on-line. We’ve expanded this initiative from 30 to over 300 businesses and intention to cowl 500 in 2025.

A key focus is enhancing the digital literacy of public servants. Two years in the past, we discovered that solely 30 per cent of public servants have been digitally literate. Since then, we’ve partnered with NITDA and the Workplace of the Head of Civil Service to offer coaching and enhance digital literacy throughout the general public sector.

Our aim is to interact all public servants on the federal, state, and native ranges, guaranteeing that they’re totally outfitted to fulfill the challenges of recent governance. We’re additionally working to make sure that native authorities monetary autonomy is totally realised.

Some Nigerians consider that the civil service continues to be extremely corrupt and that bribery is important to obtain environment friendly companies. Does this counsel that the reforms are ineffective?

I don’t totally agree with that view. We now have seen a major discount in corruption as a result of reforms we’ve carried out. Nonetheless, change takes time.

The anti-corruption businesses are working tirelessly, and with initiatives like IPPIS and the Treasury Single Account, the federal government is in a greater place to watch and forestall fraudulent actions.

Probably the most difficult facet of reform is driving change, which is a gradual course of. Whereas we’ve made important progress in lowering corruption, you will need to proceed offering details about our successes.

The efficiency administration system and digitalisation of the general public service are a part of our technique to make sure better accountability and cut back corruption.

Because it stands, you can not get a ghost employee on the payroll of the Federal Authorities now, and you can not change your days of retirement for monetary advantages anymore.

Probably the most troublesome factor to have is change. If the residents might be truthful to the federal government, over time, I believe corruption has come down. That’s whereas pillar 4 of the Nationwide Technique is cultural orientation. We try to see that we modify not solely the attitudes of public servants but additionally the angle of all people to service supply.

This can be a battle and a warfare to be fought by each Nigerian, not solely from the federal government. I’m hoping that by the point we’re capable of digitise our civil service and man-to-man contact is diminished by as much as 100 per cent, there might be no one who will demand a bribe from you.

It’s also vital to recognise that corruption will not be restricted to authorities employees. It’s current in lots of sectors of society, from transportation to markets. The battle towards corruption is ongoing, and it’s the collective accountability of all Nigerians to fight it.

What key efficiency indicators would you employ to measure the success of a reform challenge?

Simply earlier than this interview, we have been in a gathering establishing our agenda for the conduct of impression evaluation notion surveys of the reforms that we’ve both initiated and have been carried out or have been initiated by different ministries, departments, and businesses of the federal government. For each reform initiative, we’ve goal end result areas, we’ve set targets, and we’ve what we count on you to provide, for instance, the adoption of the usage of data expertise. We are saying you’ve digitalised the method of labor in your company 100 per cent; you’ve carried out. We now have been wanting on the digitalisation of employment processes within the civil service, just like the latest commercial by the Federal Civil Service Fee, which is on-line.

We now have a federal monitoring and analysis framework that we’re utilizing to measure the efficiency of the MDAs vis-à-vis the efficiency indicators set.

What are a few of the challenges the BPSR has confronted in implementing reforms, and the way did you deal with them?

As I stated earlier, driving change could be very troublesome. It isn’t straightforward to get folks out of their consolation zone. One individual might be completely satisfied, and the opposite is not going to. We now have tried as a lot as we will to beat these challenges. To drive reforms, you could be affected person, you could have curiosity within the job, and we’ve that, and we’ve been affected person. Rejections have been proven in fairly a number of quarters, however we’ve developed that deep pores and skin that it doesn’t matter what we do, throw stones at us, we are going to nonetheless come again. What helps us is that a few of these reforms usually are not coming as choices however are hooked up to insurance policies of the federal government, so that you both key in or drop by the facet and don’t profit. We try very laborious to battle the obstacles and guarantee that all people is on board.

We now have the curiosity of the management, and that makes adoption very straightforward and easy; nevertheless, after we began, a variety of our funding was coming from growth companions, and that has diminished drastically as a result of a few of them have modified their focus and so consider they’ve achieved sufficient and the federal government ought to take over, however then, reforms are hardly funded by nationwide budgets.

We’re nonetheless in talks with the event companions to have a rethink and are available again and discuss to you.

One other problem we’ve is institutional rivalry and the battle for relevance. And that’s why one of many issues we try to do is encourage collaboration between the MDAs in order that we converse the identical language of reforms.

That’s why you see me because the DG of BPSR embarking on fairly a number of courtesy calls and visits to chief govt officers of MDAs to get them to work with us. The president can also be encouraging that we work collectively to hurry up the reforms we’re driving.

None of us can succeed alone.

What are your plans for a complete overhaul of the general public sector, given its essential significance to the execution of presidency insurance policies?

We plan to guarantee that we totally implement the plans captured within the nationwide technique on public service reforms, which has the agenda saying that Nigeria’s public service should be among the many first 20 public companies on the planet. We’re in 2025, however we aren’t there but. We now have recognized what we name constructing blocks, businesses of the federal government which have reached world-class requirements, and we’re ensuring that we assist them maintain their efficiency at that stage in order that they don’t come down till we get others to get to that stage. We are going to work with the drivers of the federal government masterplan to guarantee that even earlier than 2030 all of the MDAs are 100 per cent paperless. By way of our work with sister businesses, we’ve deepened the adoption of synthetic intelligence.

Now, there may be a man-made intelligence adoption technique by the Federal Authorities of Nigeria.

That’s why we’re calling on the federal government and inspiring it to provide you with a particular incentive that can make us develop a hub of IT technicians and fintech firms in Nigeria. This has already began, because the president has already transformed one of many homes of Nigeria in the US into an IT hub, and we’re working with Google, Microsoft, and others, however I need us to transcend that. I need us to provide you with specialised insurance policies and programmes whereas we determine those that have the talents and provides all of them the assist they should do all that’s anticipated of them in Nigeria.

In closing, I wish to emphasise that the residents who’ve positioned their belief in us count on steady enchancment within the high quality of public service offered by the federal government.

Nigeria’s dedication to the Open Authorities Partnership leaves us no alternative however to interact with residents and ship high quality companies. Because of this the concentrate on buyer expertise is well timed.

It permits us to evaluate how residents really feel concerning the companies offered and what extra we have to do. Because the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, we are going to proceed collaborating with varied departments and businesses of presidency to make sure we converse the identical language, comply with the identical path, and align our efforts. This coordinated strategy will improve public service reforms and enhance the general high quality of service supply.

We’re open to discussions with everybody concerned on this course of, and even with these not but instantly concerned, we are going to attain out to make sure broad participation.

Moreover, I urge all states to ascertain their public service reform programmes, much like the federal authorities’s efforts. This may be certain that states and native governments additionally profit from the reforms being carried out on the federal stage. A good portion of Nigeria’s workforce is outdoors the federal public service, so as soon as reforms are prolonged to state and native governments, we are going to see even better enhancements within the nation.

We will even proceed with capability growth programmes. This 12 months, we plan to collaborate with a number of analysis establishments to develop initiatives that concentrate on the rapid wants of the general public service and determine areas that require change. As an illustration, as seen within the U.S., the place the President’s emphasis on public service transformation led to swift modifications, we intention to drive comparable progress.

Lastly, I wish to name on our growth companions in Nigeria to proceed supporting us and different authorities businesses. Your collaboration is important in serving to us meet our targets and fulfil the objectives outlined in our strategic plan, notably these associated to BPSR. We’re dedicated to working with worldwide organisations to boost our efforts.