LAGOS State governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, said on Thursday that the State Civil Service, giving its potentials, owes it a duty to constantly re-invent itself and explore and adopt strategies that will help it become ready to fulfil higher responsibilities.
Governor Ambode gave this charge at the opening session of a training programme tagged: ‘Effective Management Strategies for Repositioning and Higher Responsibilities,’ organised by the State Ministry of Establishment, Training and Pensions.
The governor, who was represented by the commissioner in the ministry, Dr. Akinola Benson Oke, listed the strategies to include embracing a lean culture approach to projects and promoting and enhancing teamwork or synergy within the service, expressing confidence that those strategies alongside other approaches would make Lagos State Civil Service more productive, more efficient and more goal-oriented.
“A civil service with as many responsibilities and potential as the Lagos State Civil Service must indeed seek to constantly reinvent itself and explore and adopt strategies that will help it become ready to fulfil higher responsibilities.
“Thus, I propose to devote this opening address to elucidate on two of the strategies for achieving the purpose of this training.
“This is the strategy of embracing a lean culture approach to projects and other establishment matters and the strategy of promoting and enhancing team work or synergy within the Lagos State Civil Service.
“I am confident that these two strategies, along with the other proven strategies to be taught in this workshop, will make civil service more productive, more efficient, and more goal-oriented.
“Ultimately, it will make the Lagos State Civil Service more suited to support the government of Lagos State to realise its core objectives of promoting and enhancing the social and infrastructural objectives of the good people of Lagos State,” the governor said.
According to Governor Ambode, “doing more with less” has become a policy mantra since the onset of the Great Recession, but sadly remarked that this mantra had not translated into actual implementable policy in most segments of the public service in the country.
However, the governor noted with delight that Lagos State Civil Service had come a long way and led the way in reducing waste while increasing productivity, pointing out that this was partly as a result of the extensive investments in knowledge and skill by the state government for which the state civil service must remain grateful.
“The importance of eliminating waste cannot be overemphasised. Countless studies have shown that with good and sound processes relating to the management of time and resources, one finds that meagre resources can be extended to produce outstanding results. In other words, organisations and individuals can achieve more with less,” Governor Ambode said.
“Along with the earlier-advocated strategy of lean management and the other strategies to be considered in this training, I am confident that the Lagos State Civil Service will be on the path to being repositioned for higher effectiveness and responsibilities.
“In the final analysis, we find that there is much to gain from pursuing these strategies and, in doing so, to build a Lagos State Civil Service that is always ready and prepared to fulfil higher responsibilities,” the governor added.
Speaking with newsmen, Professor Mike Kupolati, who was the resource person at the training, said the aim of the workshop was to ensure that the state civil service was better equipped in helping to move the state forward, even as he lauded Governor Ambode for investing heavily in training and retraining of civil servants in Lagos in making them compare favourably with their counterparts in developed world.
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