15th June, 2016
Kazeem Ugbodaga
No fewer than 104 Local Government staff in Lagos State are jostling to break the long period of stagnation in their career progression and promotion.
The officers who have been on grade level 07 for years have remained in the same bar as they lacked the necessary academic qualification to enable them progress in their career.
The officers are currently undergoing a nine-month intensive training programme that will qualify them to obtain a certificate in Local Government Administration in order to break the jinx of not progressing above grade level 07, at the Public Service Staff Development Centre, PSSDC, Magodo area of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2016 Certificate Course in Local Government Administration on Wednesday, the Director General, PSSDC, Mrs. Olubunmi Fabamwo said the Local Government as the tier closest to the people requires effective service delivery by the staff as that is the yardstick for measuring the performance of government.
“As such, Local Government staff must possess the right knowledge, skills and attitude to enable the delivery of essential social services to the people. It is for this reason that successive state governments had continuously been developing local government staff to fulfill this mandate.
“The nine months programme is a specially designed in-service capacity development programme to assist the movement of qualified local government staff on the clerical cadre into the executive cadre. It is an appropriate foundation for participants who possess the required capacity but who may be hindered by the qualifications they joined the service with to build on their educational qualifications and advance their careers.
“It is therefore a stagnation-breaking and career-enhancing programme. It may interest you to know that the possession of a certificate at the end of this course is one of the requirements for promotion of officers on the clerical cadre by the Local Government Service Commission,” she said.
According to him, the course had been designed to equip the staff with skills necessary for the efficient and effective performance of their job.
Fabamwo said the staff would undergo a four-week attachment programme in any local government other than their own, advising them to display excellent academic and moral standards throughout the duration of the course.
She warned that the centre placed a high premium on hard work, diligence and punctuality and to sit for the two examinations designed for the programme, the participants must achieve 80 percent class attendance.
Declaring the course open, the Chairman of Lagos State Local Government Service Commission, Mr. Babatunde Rotinwa noted that the course was made possible because the state government has continued to place a premium on local government administration which has led to the Unified Local Government Service.
He urged participants to make good use of the opportunity to move up the ladder in their career.