Project cost: FG to stop outsourcing foreign professionals

THE Federal Government has lamented huge cost incurred for outsourcing project management and certain technical tasks in the civil service to foreign professionals and firms and vowed to stop the trend.

Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita, made this known in Abuja while addressing participants from different Ministries and Departments and Agencies (MDAs) during a five-day training programme on Survey Design, Data Interpretation and Reporting.

She equally tasked civil servants to create bankable data that would assist the government in planning and implementation of programmes for the people.

Oyo-Ita noted that government over the years had incurred a huge cost in outsourcing the professional task to foreigners, saying she has initiated series of training aimed at equipping core civil servants with relevant knowledge and skills to end the capital flight.

The five days training programme is to equip civil servants with innovative ways of gathering and interpreting data for the government.

She noted that civil servants should be able to manage it’s environment and job, adding that the federal government incurs cost yearly to pay huge consultancy firms to do jobs that can be handled and managed by civil servants themselves.

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She said: “We want to develop the core civil servants who can be the training arm going forward. We can’t continue to be bringing consultants from outside, even from international organisations, people that are paid in huge foreign currencies.”

“If we are able to train these civil servants, they will be able to develop themselves and also apply their knowledge.

“We cannot run away from the fact that the world is moving technologically and we cannot be left behind,” she noted.

Oyo-Ita stressed that government depends on civil servants as chief advisers and operators of government’s policies, saying should civil servants fail in their duties, socio-economic development of the country would be at risk.

She further revealed that plans were underway for government to procure a software license code-named “the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan, FCSSIP”, to enable civil servants in the survey, data gathering and interpretation.

The Permanent Secretary, Service Policies and Strategies of the Head of the Civil Service, Dr Magdalene Ajani, speaking at the event said that individuals selected from various MDAs for the training would remain the contact persons that will drive the reforms.

Ajani also stated that participants would be required to undergo further training to ensure that the knowledge and skills acquired are productively applied in the civil service.