LABOUR MINISTRY SETS COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT

….To sanction indolence performance

By AKOR SYLVESTER-Abuja

The ministry of Labour and Employment yesterday, said it would provide the enabling environment for competitive performance in rendering quality services, giving room for encouragement of staff aspiring to put in their best in the discharge of their duties,

This is as the ministry said it would sanction poor and indolence performance in the discharge of duties.

The minister of state for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo who dropped the hint at the 2022 Ministerial Service Award Programme for Labour Sector in Abuja Thursday said the forum was an opportunity to inform all that enhanced performance for productivity must be encouraged.

He said the platform was to celebrate and recognize excellence in service delivery by some carefully selected officers of the Ministry.

According to him; “With the performance Management process in place, it will not be business as usual for unproductive civil servants. There are sanctions for incompetence.

“It is heart-warming that our Ministry is recognizing the outstanding performance of officers who have tirelessly worked to help the Ministry achieve its mandate in the course of the year.

“Quite a number of these staff have been able to discharge their duties under unfriendly and challenging environment yet these officers demonstrated zeal and passion in attending to their schedules”.

The minister said the courage and bravery displayed by the officers was what has recommended them for the awards conferred on them.

He noted that the different categories of awardees were drawn from different departments of the Ministry and the Agencies ranging through different grade levels.

The minister said the award was one of the ways to encourage excellent performance and inculcate competitive spirit among staff, who deserve the honour of this reward system

He congratulated the recipients of the award, requesting them to further deepen their commitment to service and ensure that their exemplary conduct is sustained.

The minister recalled that the first Pan-African Conference of Ministers of Civil Service was held in Tangier, Morocco from 20th to 21 June 1994 where the Ministers issued the Tangier Declaration in which they resolved to have the Pan-African Conference of Ministers once every two years.

“It was at this conference that 23rd of June every year was to be commemorated as Africa Day for civil service. It was equally stressed that there was the need for African Countries to celebrate public servants who in the course of each year, demonstrated exemplary conduct in driving Government Machinery for the formulation and implementation of its policies and programmes for sustainable development.

“Therefore, Nigeria as a member country has been celebrating the day since 1999 with series of activities always lined up to mark the day with pomp and pageantry all through the week of the celebration. To further enhance the productivity of civil servants. the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation enjoined Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDA) to ensure strengthening of the reward and recognition, as entrenched in Public Service Rules

“The Commemoration of this year’s African Public Service Day has come and gone, but the driving force behind the African Blue print and Master Plan for transforming Africa into global power house of the future, remains a very critical focus for Nigeria In this regard, Mr. President has mandated the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation to institutionalize Performance Management across MDAs, thus the reason for the topic for today “Performance Management System (PMS): Impact on Productivity in the Nigerian Public Service.

“You all know that Productivity is a result of commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and consistent effort to achieve result. Institutionalizing PMS means adopting a performance driven culture in public processes to enhance the efficiency. effectiveness, and accountability of the public sector MDAS performance goals and targets must align with organizational and national development goals, while clear performance metrics must be established Performance management appraisal will be used for monitoring regular feedback and to develop rewarding system”,. he noted.

Speaking earlier, the permanent secretary of the ministry, Kachollom Daju said Nigeria as a member country of the AU has never defaulted in the recognition of civil servants that have distinguished themselves in their fields of endeavour as part of the commemoration of African Public Service Day.

She stated that the Office of Head of Civil Service had taken the lead in ensuring that civil servants were duly compensated for their contribution to the service in general.

“Considering that the Federal Civil Service Strategy Implementation Plan-25 has one of the key component as the institutionalizing of performance management system with the mind to apprise and reward performance.

“The importance of performance management cannot be over emphasized as it will Improve organizational performance, employee retention and loyalty, improve productivity thereby overcoming the barriers to communication, clear accountability, and cost advantages.

“The issue resolved by management would be reduced cause of bridging of communication gap between management and staff and this will Saves time and reduce conflicts generated with Labour Union while it will also ensures efficiency and consistency in performance.

“Indeed Recognition of hard work and performance is all about giving positive feedback based on results. An award, a bonus, a promotion etc are means to demonstrate appreciation of contributions to achieving goals.

“The Ministry had carefully and genuinely selected deserving officers through a credible process with inputs from all the Departments to come up with the list of officers being awarded today”, she noted.