Public Service Revitalization and Renewal Project begins in Kaduna State, as job portal is opened

Nasir El-Rufai Governor Kaduna State

By Bashir Muhammad

DG, Bureau of Public Service Reform

Kaduna State Government

The Kaduna State Government is determined to restore the public service as the facilitator of good governance. Every government relies on the public service for its governance agenda, and its success in realizing its programmes depends on the quality and commitment of the service.

The ability of the public service in Kaduna State to meet governance challenges is limited by deep-rooted malaise; including poor skills, mismatch of roles, an ageing workforce that is largely not ICT-compliant, capacity gaps in the middle cadre, the erosion of discipline and standards and the regrettable absence of a citizen-focused service delivery culture.All these have eroded the tradition of public service excellence and limited its capacity to support governance. 

Therefore, the Kaduna State Government is embarking on a project to revitalize the public service, renew its ranks and reform it for effective and efficient performance. 

The Kaduna State Public Service Revitalization and Renewal Project will be presented on Monday, 26th September 2016. The programme will address the current challenges of the State’s Public Service based on a multi-faceted approach, all aimed at re-positioning the Service as an efficient service delivery organ of the government.

A key goal of the reform project is to renew public service ranks with 30% of youths (aged between 22-35) in 2016 (immediate term) and 50% by 2018 (medium term). The State has already begun taking steps to achieve this goal by creating a job portal where youths in the State with tertiary education qualifications, between the ages of 22-35, can submit their details. This is to enable the government have concise information about the number of unemployed graduates in the State and database from which to recruit youths.

This will restructure the public service, improve its efficacy and enhance the ability of public servants to effectively serve the 9-10 million residents of the State. The reform project aims to resolve issues impeding public service efficiency, address low productivity rates, redundancy, duplication of roles, high proportion of aged workers, unskilled staff as well as the inherited N14bn pension and gratuity bill.

These reforms are designed to have no adverse impact on serving officers, but they offer a window for voluntary retirement. A review of archaic civil service rules that have impeded the efficiency of the workforce will also be undertaken. The reforms are focused on undertaking a strategic capacity renewal of the public service to guarantee sustainable service, efficiency and productivity towards making Kaduna State great again.