BY FESTUS OKOROMADU
The Bureau of Public Service Reforms and University of Lagos Consult have signed a Memorandum of Understanding towards building capacities for elected public office holders to entrench ethos of good governance.
The MoU was signed on Friday in Abuja on behalf of BPSR by its Director-General, Dasuki Arabi, while Mohammed Usman, the Managing Director, University of Lagos Consult signed for UNILAG Consult.
“The initiative is inspired by the need to ensure that newly elected officers are properly prepared for assumption of office,” Arabi said after signing the agreement.
He said that the public officers would be taken through rigorous training in rudimentary governance procedures and practices.
Arabi said that this was necessary to equip them and understand the operations of the public service.
The director-general said that the MoU was in line with the mandate of the Bureau, especially the implementation of the National Strategy for Public Service Reforms, which includes induction training for top government officials.
“The idea is to ensure that given the background of some of the appointees who were mainly drawn from the private sector, they are acquainted with the rudimentary knowledge on public governance in respect to their roles, relationship and responsibilities.
“This informed the decision of the Bureau to quickly embrace the proposal from the UNILAG Consult to conduct a wider training that will involve the induction of elected public officers such as state governors, deputies as well as members of state assemblies.”
According to him, the induction will ensure seamless take-off on their assumption of duties, as well as assist them on the expectations of their new offices.
“Modern governance requires a lot of tasks owing to the vulnerability across the globe. It is therefore apt that elected public officers are properly up-skilled on modern governance practices and challenges,” he added.
He said that already, the Bureau had written to the SGF for approval to organise Post-Election Mandatory Leadership training for the newly elected governors, deputies, lawmakers and elected local government officials.
“The proposed induction involving newly elected governors and deputies is expected to hold in the first week of May in Abuja, while that of the members of state assemblies will follow subsequently across the various geo-political zones.
“Curriculum for the training has been carefully selected to cover multi-disciplinary areas such as Procurement, Public Governance, Economic and Financial Crimes.
Others are E- Governance, Freedom of Information, Investment and Internally Generated Revenue and the Open Government Partnership,” he added.
Responding, Usman, who was also the Chairman of the Technical Committee for the event, thanked all members and urged them to put in their best for effective public service delivery.
He said so far, four sub-committees had been formed and they were performing excellently to ensure public service delivered on their mandate.
He named the committees to include that of Finance, Technical, Logistics and Publicity.
