Mr. Dasuki Arabi, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), has identified lack of skilled manpower as a major challenge affecting productivity in Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
Arabi, who stated this in Abuja on Saturday said the need for public servants to gain more knowledge through IT-based programmes to meet the needs of the present global standards in delivery of public services must be highlighted.
To proffer solutions, the BPSR’s boss, however, disclosed that government had come up with initiatives to improve the quality of services in the MDAs.
“One of the things that we have identified is lack of capacity. We have wonderful programmes, we have wonderful initiatives, but the skilled manpower to drive those policies and programmes is always a problem.
“And that is why part of the reforms the Federal Government is driving is capacity building, ” he said.
According to him, the government has launched a special capacity development initiative tagged: Structured Assessment-Based Training Programme (SMAT-P) and Leadership Enhancement and Development Programme (LEAD-P) to address the gaps.
He said the introduction of the two programmes was to upscale and retrain public servants in the country.
The director-general said the SMART-P and LEAD-P initiatives were to restructure the nation’s public service to meet global standards.
“In addition to that, group of officers have been selected after passing through vigorous tests, examinations and interviews.
“They are undergoing training in the Public Service Institute to see how we can start the process of developing champions.”
Arabi said that the government had directed all MDAs to pay special attention to capacity building, adding that capacity programmes were also online for the benefit of a greater number of civil servants.
“Some have already started, government has put up IT-based training facilities in the public service institutions.
“This is part of the things that we will be doing to drive online capacity development programmes, so that people can attend those courses from the comfort of their houses or their offices,” he added.