FG scraps promotion exams in civil service

 With effect from 2013, promotion in the federal civil service will no longer be based on promotion examinations. This is due to the landmark decision taken by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan at the State House yesterday. Promotion of officers in the federal civil service will now be based on the performance contract system recently introduced by the Federal Government.

President Goodluck Jonathan had in August signed a performance contract with his cabinet upon which a bi-annual assessment would be made on the ministers’ performance as a way to ensure that their action actually impacts positively on Nigerians.

The contract signing has since been replicated in the various federal ministries between the ministers, permanent secretaries and directors.

The decision to commence the use of the contract for promotion formed part of the deliberation by the Council following a formal presentation by the Federal Civil Service Commission on the matter.

According to the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, who briefed State House correspondents after the meeting, the Federal Civil Service Commission, which is the brain behind the initiative, has proposed a number of pilot ministries to commence implementation in 2013 including Agriculture, Education, Finance, Health and Works.

He said: “In view of the introduction of the performance contract systems into the MDAs, the federal civil service commission is now considering the possibility of using performance measure which is the essence of this contract system as a basis for promotion.

“Essentially what they are proposing to do is that, rather than conducting exams for top civil servants like directors, they will wait on the outcome of performance measurement which will be conducted Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs)-wide to determine if the directors have delivered on their mandates. The basis of that measurement will therefore be the basis for the fulcrum on which their promotion will be based.

“The beauty of the system if it comes into effect in 2013 is that the promotion of career officers will therefore be based on the result of the work they do as measured by the satisfaction of members of the public. 

“Of course, you know that the performance contract system is not based on the number of projects we execute but the impact of those projects on the life of citizens. So, this process will therefore mean that the public service will adjust itself especially the movement of its career officers will be based on the result of their own MDAs in delivering service to their project.

“We think it is a step in the right direction and we want to see how the federal and state civil service commission will implement this. In our opinion is a revolutionary step which will change the way the public service will look at itself now and also it will improve standards, accountability, result delivery particularly in terms of service delivery,”  he said.

The Minister also announced plans by FEC to do away with analogue operations and embrace automation of all its activities as from January 2013 following a presentation by Galaxy Backbone on e-governance and how to reduce cost of governance particularly at the level of FEC and MDAs. 

He pointed out that at present, most of FEC’s operations were done manually which entailed the preparation of voluminous memos in hard copies that slowed down efficiency in time management. 

“What it means is that all of us in our MDAs will be networked together so that all the memos sent to Council will not go manually any more, they will go straight through the network system, accessed, processed and will be returned to us also electronically,” Maku disclosed.