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Economic Confidential,
September, 2009
FEATURES
Oronsaye’s Civil Service reform: Another Option
By Hussaini Sani Kagara
IT is said that in every action, there is always an opposite
reaction. This may be why the recent circular by the Head of Service
of the Federation that Permanent Secretaries would serve for a
renewable term of 4years and Directors would compulsorily retire
after serving 8years, has elicited a lot of debate. The regional
dimension of the debate was more often than the substance or
desirability of the new Policy. Whatever it is, the new policy has
open the long held believe that the Civil Service at all level of
Government is in dire need of reform in all facets. From Tudoe Davis
Commission of 1945 to Dotun Philips Panel of 1985, several efforts
have been made to reform the Civil Service system but because of
politics, sentiments and mediocrity, the recommendations of several
committees were never implemented to the latter.
Civil Service, as it is today, is a pyramid that is massively
crowded at the bottom layer and less crowded at the top stratum. But
is the Civil Service meant to be a skewed pyramid? Nonetheless,
despite this scenario, lack of speedy progression at the top band,
which is less crowded, has become a source of serious concern by
immediate subordinates. In point of fact, the blame is not from the
structure of the service, even if it is, the larger part of the
blame could be found in the abuse of the rules and regulations
guiding the operation of the system. In addition to this, the
politicians have been left to grossly bastardise the system. Over
the years, the passion to work and the zeal to serve the nation in
the public service has been abandoned for greed thus organised
looting of the public funds becomes the order of the day to the
detriment of service delivery to the general public.
A blame that is noticeable is the point that as the population of
the country grow, with expanding demand and corresponding government
activities at all levels of government, there seems to be less
consciousness on the part of the government to expand the Civil
Service to provide room for vacancies which would ultimately
accommodate growing population while at the same time reducing
stagnation. The consequence of this neglect, create the chances for
stagnation in a system that is deeply rooted in promotion at
intermittent intervals. In addition, it is worth noticing that the
present absorption level into the Civil Service of the Federation as
well as the States and also the Local Governments has far outweighed
the number of retirements from the Civil Service. Indeed, many
factors are responsible for this development.
In this case, tenureship system is being introduced to stem
stagnation in the Civil Service organism. But, how viable would the
new policy be to staunching stagnation and overall efficiency?
Moreso, the new policy was received with a lot of scepticism with
regional colouration taking a centre stage. In point fact, the
emergence of sentiments in the debate, government policies and
programmes are likely to be affected gravely. Whatever is the
advantage of the tenureship policy at the top of the Civil Service,
it is very unlikely that it would address the issue of stagnation at
the narrow top layer of the Civil Service Pyramid while the bottom
has a morass of recruit due also for promotion. Therefore, unless
there is a corresponding expansion of the top echelon of the Civil
Service to address the crowd of mass recruit and duly waiting to be
promoted at the same time, the tenure approach would only be a tip
on the ice berg. In the circumstance, a leap could
be borrowed from the complex American Army structure where there are
more Four Star Generals, unlike Nigeria, with Command Post – this
means that the Civil Service must look in-ward to open-up more
frontiers.
The candid truth is that tenureship at the Directorate Cadre is just
a narrow approach to address the problem of stagnation when it is a
symbol that is found in every cadre of the Civil Service. What is
urgently needed is a double-barrel approach. The Government rather
than introducing a lopsided tenureship system, what is extremely
necessary, is the reduction in the number of years of service from
35years to 25years while at the same time putting the retirement age
at 55years instead of 60years. In the same vein, Civil Service
career should end at the level of Director instead of Permanent
Secretary since it has been politicised long ago. By this
arrangement, the President shall then appoint Permanent Secretaries
from the league of retired Directors who should not be more than
60years of age in the first instance of appointment and that would
manage the question of experience. In addition, Board Members of
Commissions and Agencies of governments are
likely to come from the category of retired Directors which would
further breach the gap of experience in the service.
One advantage of this approach is that at the age of 55years, any
retiree may be useful to himself by having the strength to plan for
the remaining years of life and not to mortgage whole productive
years in a basket called the Civil Service. Another advantage is the
fact that, since there are more Directors than Permanent
Secretaries, there would be mass retirements and heap of opportunity
for mass movement and stack recruitment within the service. It is
necessary to note that most of the Civil Servants join the system at
an average age of 25years thus would be retiring at the age of
50years. Therefore, serving for 25years is an appreciable limit of
great contribution and service to fatherland – Nigeria. It is of
interest to note that the generation just before and after
independence to early 1980s have served the nation wonderfully at
much younger age. What this approach thus demand is change in the
Civil Service Rules whereby the years determining
promotion would be re-aligned to accommodate the effect of reduction
in the number of years of service or retirement age.
The point that must not be missed is the fact the Civil Service in
Nigeria has virtually collapsed. Politics and politicisation has
systematically bastardised the very essence of the Civil Service.
Consequently, morale is weak, remuneration is very poor, efficiency
is no more, competence has been ditched and merit abandoned.
Nonetheless, hope is not lost, Nigerians still believe in Nigeria
despite the numerous challenges. The Civil Service is not optional
unless there is no government. The glory of Civil Service can only
be reclaimed by the quality of education being impacted and not in
the number of years one is to serve or position to attain. May God
help Nigeria!
Hussaini Sani Kagara
No. I43, Masoyi Road, Kagara
Niger State
hsanikagara@yahoo.com |
