Ambode: Civil Servants must acquire commercial, behavioural skills

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Dr. Benson Oke

Dr. Benson Oke

By Kazeem Ugbodaga

Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode on Thursday charged civil servants in the state to acquire commercial and behavioural skills to be able to cope in a market driven economy.

Ambode spoke at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island where here was given the Award of ‘Best Practice HR’ by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria, CIPM.

According to Ambode, the human resources in the Civil Service must acquire commercial skills and behaviours, which would ensure that many more civil servants feel confident and competent in a world where services were increasingly commissioned from the private and voluntary sectors.

“We need to take decisions and assess risk based on our knowledge of markets and be judged on whether taxpayers’ money has been spent wisely to deliver the right outcome,” said Ambode, who was represented by the Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Dr. Benson Oke.

Ambode added that the human resources in the civil service must lead and manage change, saying that “change is a constant feature of the modern Civil Service. We need to manage these changes and ensure that our teams are equipped to embrace new ways of working.”

More so, the governor said that the human resources in the civil service must deliver successful projects and programmes.

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“This calls for increasing our ability to deliver the Government’s priorities, ‘right first time’, drawing on project management disciplines and methodologies to achieve predictable, consistent, robust results.

“The human resources in the civil service must be capable of redesigning services and delivering them digitally – ensuring that the civil service is equipped to redesign services around the user in order to improve delivery, value for money and agility for the future, using the power of digital,” he stated.

However, Ambode said the task before public sector entities in contemporary times was very daunting, as the challenges confronting the governments of multicultural, cosmopolitan, and global cities such as Lagos with an ever-expanding population were herculean.

“Among many others, the government has to provide for the security, transportation, education, and housing of a teeming and diversified population. In order to do this, the government has to craft policies and strategies that take into consideration the demographic composition of residents of Lagos State; these policies and strategies have to be constantly tested, monitored, reviewed and, when found adequate, have to be fully implemented. Add to all these, the all-important task of raising the revenue required to execute and fund these strategies and policies.

“However, the good news is that the Lagos State Government has discovered the secret to success in public sector administration. Indeed, the government of Lagos State has discovered that, by placing premium on the welfare and capacity of its human resources, all its seemingly daunting tasks can be satisfactorily discharged,” he stated.

 

 

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