By Adebisi Adeyemi Lagos,Nigeria
More than 16000 civil servants and teachers in Oyo State have benefited from local and overseas capacity building and training programmes since the inception of the Senator Abiola Ajimobi-led administration.
The governor disclosed this while declaring open a capacity development programme organized by the state government for management and senior staff in the state civil service, at the Parliament Building, Secretariat, Ibadan, on Tuesday.
The Special Adviser to the Governor, Efficiency Unit, Dr. Isaac Ayandele, was billed to deliver a lecture on theme of the programme, ‘Work ethics and attitudinal change for effective and efficient service delivery’ at the workshop.
Ajimobi, who described the civil service as the engine room of the government, said it was imperative to update, train and retrain the personnel to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness.
He said, “I will rather suggest that this training programme be tagged human capacity training for change. Because, those who fail to change are usually carried away by that change. The essence of governance is to promote the wellbeing of the citizenry.
“The civil service is the engine room of the civil service. If the engine malfunctions, the vehicle will not work well. For the optimum effectiveness of the engine room, the service must be overhauled, restructured and re-oiled.”
Senator Ajimobi urged workers to endeavor to aim high in their callings, saying that to think positive in their works would lead to positive achievements.
The governor used the opportunity to admonish civil servants against lateness to work, delay in treatment of files, rumor mongering among other bad behaviours capable of affecting their productivity.
He said his administration had worked consistently towards quality control through continuous verification of workers’ certificates, punctuality, and other service records, adding that the state government would also continue to reward excellent performance.
Ajimobi added, “Your thoughts have ways of impacting on your efficiency. Attitudes like lateness to work, delay in treating files, rumor mongering would naturally affect your productivity.
“I enjoin you to support the government in moving the state forward by changing your values, habit and behavior towards the service.
“With the level we have maintained quality control in the state civil service through verification of certificates and close monitoring at work posts, we have today a corps of civil servants that will continue to enhance productivity and as a result grow our society.”
In his welcome address, the Head of Service, Mr. Soji Eniade, said that the capacity building programme was necessitated by the prevailing situation in the civil service as part of restructuring process of the administration.
Eniade admonished participants to take advantage of the programme, which, he said, would produce a policy document on attitudinal and ethical standard for smooth public service at the end.
