Obasanjo, others canvass on promoting effective public sector reforms in Nigeria 

…poor funding, weak reward systems impeding reforms implementation-Esan

Olusegun Obasanjo, a former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has blamed discontinuity and lack of training for public officials among other factors impeding the successful implementation of reforms in the country.

The former President, speaking at the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation workshop held in Abuja on Tuesday, said that for a reform to deliver on expectation, it must be accepted and owned by individuals including the initiator, the owner, the executor, the driver and the sustainer.

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According to him, this is necessary to ensure the reforms are driven from one government administration to another.

“There are five principal elements in reform. Now, the best thing for any reform will be the initiator, the owner, the executor, the driver and the sustainer. If possible, the same personalities. If you can get that, you are lucky.

“And one of the things I observed when I had the opportunity to look at the civil service, public service closely is inadequacy of training. And that was why we built what we built in Badagry. I don’t know how much it’s been made use of when you talk about training,” he said.

According to Obasanjo, the greatest pain of reform is discontinuity adding that any break in continuity of reforms often leads to the end of such reform. He said the need for competency in government as much as is needed in the private sector.

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In her remarks, Folasade Yemi Esan, the head of service of the federation, noted that since the dawn of Nigeria’s fourth republic under the current democratization there have been at least 48 documented reforms with the objectives of improving sectoral services and performance.

These reforms according to her cut across restructuring of the public service, fiscal governance, decentralization, enhancing accountability, and legal and corporate regulation frameworks adding that there are proliferation of reforms in the country.

According to Esan, poor funding and inadequate budgetary provisions to fund the implementation of reforms, lack of skilled manpower, and poor communication at the planning and implementation stages among others have continued to impede the success of reforms in the country.

“In the world’s most developed countries, challenges that pertain to public sector reform implementation abound. Hence every system has its inherent challenges and it is instructive to point out that there are no infallible systems anywhere in the world. Challenges will eventually arise and so reform is continuous.

“As the challenges arise there is a need for reform action to deal with those challenges and there are quite several impediments that successful reform programs always face. The first is a lack of an inclusive implementation strategy framework, poor funding and inadequate budgetary provisions in MDAs to fund the implementation of reforms.

“Some others include the lack of political will and ownership to support reform implementation, resistance to change, poor ICT infrastructure, political interferences in bureaucratic processes, dwindling supports by partners, the lack of legislation to legalize and institutionalize reforms, lack of institutional capacity, weak governance structures around the reform processes,” she said.

Esan further explained that the government has remained committed to investing in the training of officers across all the ministries geared to ensure that the civil servants now know their role in each ministry.

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According to her, the investments in the workforce are targeted at developing an enabling environment and a crop of skilled motivated disciplined and innovative civil servants who can drive reforms effectively to fast-track Nigeria’s socio-economic development.

According to her, the office in trying to do things differently has promoted constant monitoring of reform processes. “In addition to several other monitoring processes, the permanent secretaries of each ministry are mandated to submit quarterly reports on the implementation of reforms in their ministries and also there are unscheduled visits to be sure that the report the permanent secretaries are sending in is the correct report.”

She noted that the government has introduced enablers for reforms in MDAs, including culture change, change management, leveraging on partnerships, leveraging on technology, consequence management, effective communication and political buy-in.

“I wish to state that with this attempt to maximize the potential of these enablers, the office has been able to develop several laudable initiatives and this includes the development and launch of a culture change handbook that the chairman like the democratic foundation talked about.

“The culture change handbook tells every civil servant the culture of the service, what is expected once you come into the service, what is expected of you. It also includes the way you should present yourself, how should you dress coming to the office, when you are going to formal events, and what you need to put on. So it’s an in-depth culture change book.

“We also have the culture change video that was played just before I began the keynote address. The culture change videos play anywhere the head of service goes and before the head of service speaks the culture change video plays. I believe that even in the ministries, the permanent secretaries also play the culture change video.

“A change management strategy is something that we have lost throughout the years, this is the first time that we introduced a change management strategy. We just think that change is automatic, it is not.

“Changing people’s mindset, changing people’s way of doing things is the most difficult thing in any reform process and so a change management strategy is key because it will address that resistance to change and that is, you know, once you can change a person’s mindset then you have won the battle,” she added.

In her remarks, Ofovwe Aig-Imoukhuede, Executive Vice Chair at the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation said, “This workshop provides a platform to identify the underlying causes of past public sector reform failures and develop a roadmap for achieving lasting progress in the future. Our mission at the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation is to facilitate the reform of the Nigerian public service so that it reaches its potential as a powerful agent for positive change.