Federal government has reiterated commitment to address the emerging challenges of Treasury Single Account TSA, Pension Reforms and others towards repositioning the public service.
The Director General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Mr. Ibrahim- Dasuki Arabi, stated this while presenting a paper titled “Dissecting Public Service Reforms” at a symposium organized by the Faculty of Administration, Congo Campus, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria.
The Symposium has as its theme “Dissecting the Nigeria Public Service institution: Leadership, Governance and Service Delivery (Past, present and Future).
Mr. Ibrahim Dasuki Arabi said President Buhari had inaugurated a committee headed by the Bureau to look at the reform’s initiatives around pension so as to proffer solution to emerging challenges of pension.
He said government monetization programme was celebrated initially as many civil servants became landlords in Abuja and other places, but now some negative impacts of the policy were manifesting.
Mr. Arabi explained that government was poised to come up with a redesigned housing programme to make acquisition of houses by public and civil servant easy.
According to him, another reform by the Bureau is the Treasury Single Account (TSA) which has many branches and also a flexible software programme that can be manipulated to add what you want to address.
“By the time we seat on the table, we will address some of the challenges universities, teaching hospitals and some federal public institutions are facing’’ he assured.
The Director General said the Bureau had transformed financial management from analogue to digital to reduce corruption, adding that the IPPIS and Public Financial Management Reforms were some of the innovations which transformed Nigeria’s public service.
Mr. Ibrahim-Dasuki Arabi hinted that the organisation would open a line of discussion with key institutions like Ahmadu Bello University to bridge the gaps between theories and practice to improve policies developed by the bureau which government was implementing.
Similarly, the Permanent Secretary, Human Resources and Staff Development, National Assembly Alhaji Suraj Oladini, also presented a paper titled “Dissecting National Assembly; Structure Functions and Service Delivery.
Oladini was of the view that Nigeria had the capacity to maintain two chambers at the national assembly while advised parliamentarian to deploy merit in the appointment of legislative aides. In a remark, the Vice-Chancellor of the University Prof. Kabiru Bala said the symposium was one of the activities designed to revive the culture of intellectual discourse in the university.
According to him, ABU Zaria has been known to be the bedrock of policy formulation and direction to both the military and civilian government due to its age-long tradition of intellectual discourse, hence the decision to revive symposiums such as this.
