FG unveils new public service rules

 

President Bola Tinubu

The Federal Government has unveiled the new Public Service Rules for immediate implementation in the service.

The unveiling was done by Mr Olawale Edun, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on monetary policies, at a public service lecture, as part of the activities to mark the 2023 Civil Service Week in Abuja on Thursday.

The theme for the service week is: ‘Digitalisation of work processes in the public service: A gateway to efficient resources utilisation and national development’.

The Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HOCSF), Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan, said Nigeria was fully keying into digitalised public service to meet the required global standards of service operations, hence the need for digital policy in the service.

“Following the very extensive work carried out to put in place the required mechanisms for the smooth transition from physical handling of tasks, I am pleased to state that the office of the Head of Service has gone digital with its work processes.

“By this, I mean, all the personal and policy files have been scanned and stored in digital format; workflow processes are now transacted within the office digitally,” she said.

According to Yemi-Esan, all official correspondence in form of memos, internal and external circulars are processed electronically through the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) being one of the pillars of the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan 2021-2025 (FCSSIP25).

The initiative she said, was designed to transform the Federal Civil Service to a world class service which had noted the need for digitisation of the public service.

The HOS said all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) were expected to key into digitisation initiative by the end of the year 2025.

“From the service-wide perspective, all MDAs are running with the digitisation programme and are at different stages of implementation; with a mandate for all to achieve full migration by the end of 2025.

“It is pleasing to note, some MDAs have also deployed some ECM solutions for their workflows,” she said.

Edun expressed delight over the introduction of technology in the civil service system, adding that such innovative ideas could make work faster and reliable in the course of delivering services to the workers.

In an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Prof. Stefan Dercon, a Guest Speaker, who spoke on ‘Driving Digital Transformation in the Public Service in Nigeria explained that workers could deliver better services with the adoption of technology in service.

Dercon, also a Professor of Economic Policy, University of Oxford, stated further that the application of digital knowledge would  give workers opportunity to be more transparent, clearer and efficient while on duty.

He nevertheless, advised the public servants that running services to the nation was a privilege where one had opportunity to be useful in all aspects of life even after leaving the service.

“Being a civil servant is a privilege because you act or do a lot of things, you are already in a position to act and you have to try a lot to do your best, ” he said.