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From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
A total of 250 federal civil servants on Grade Level 08-14 will be converted to planning officers by the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) at the end of a two-week intensive training at the Public Service Institute of Nigeria (PSIN), the Federal Government has disclosed.
Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoCSF) Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan made the disclosure at the opening ceremony of the training which had in attendance 800 officers on Grade Level 08-14.
The Head of Service, who described the process of selection as rigorous and competitive, a total of 1,704 applications were received in response to the circular, out of which about 800 officers were found eligible based on the set criteria.
Yemi-Esan explained that ‘officers on Grade Levels 08–14 in the mainstream federal service were invited to apply for lateral conversion to the Planning Officer Cadre. In response to the circular, a total of 1,704 applications were received out of which about 800 officers were found eligible based on the set criteria.
‘Our target is to select the best 250 officers out of the 800 eligible candidates and subject them to intensive training. In order to identify the best hands, a competency test was administered to the candidates.
‘The first selection examination took place on 8 April 2021 while the final selection examination took place on 19 May 2021. While these activities were being carried out, a robust training curriculum for the Cadre was put in place by the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER), in collaboration with the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation and our Management Development Institutes (MDIs), to address the identified training needs. In line with our quality assurance principle, the curriculum has been reviewed by a committee of seasoned serving and retired senior civil servants.’
The Head of Service explained the dearth of manpower in planning was behind the training, stating that for effective governance, the capacity of officers needs to develop to execute short, medium and long-term strategic plans aimed at solving complex problems and aid government to make effective decisions.
Yemi-Esan said ‘over the years, there has been an exponential decline in the ability of Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) to fulfil these roles in the delivery of their mandates for the actualization of national goals.
‘Our almost moribund Planning, Research and Statistics (PRS) departments that are saddled with the responsibilities of articulating and driving government’s plans, projects and programmes are currently challenged by the dearth of adequate manpower to discharge their mandates.
‘It is now overdue to reinforce our PRS departments while a structured recruitment process is put in place by the Federal Civil Service Commission to beef up the pool of officers.’
Yemi-Esan said it was to bridge the existing gaps created by the inadequacy of the planning officer cadre, that the service initiated the reinforcement of the Planning Officer Cadre through the issuance of a service-wide circular in July 2020 and the subsequent commencement of other selection activities.
According to her, ‘the focus of this initiative is to identify and develop a new and cerebral crop of officers to effectively carry out corporate and strategic planning through research activities, acquisition, interpretation and preservation of data and information for the Civil Service.’
In his remarks, Director-General, Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER), Prof. Gbadebo Smith, tasked the participants to take the training seriously.
He urged them to embrace a life-long of constant learning to make their marks in the Planning, Research and Statistics departments of the civil service.
