Former Federation’s Head of Service (HoS) Stephen Oronsaye has said that a lack of capacity, accountability, and transparency hinders the civil service in the country.
Oronsaye stated this in a paper presentation at the just-ended two-day Executive Council Retreat 2025, which the Abia State government organised for the enlarged Executive Council in the capital, Umuahia.
In the paper “Enhancing Public Service Through Efficiency, Accountability, Transparency and Impactful Reforms”, he called for capacity building, a conducive work environment, and contract appointments to fill the gaps.
He emphasised the need for staff auditing, identifying the competence gap, determining the workforce size needed, and embarking on training and retraining to have impactful reforms.
“There should be collaboration between the Civil Service Commission and the office of the Head of Service. Friction between public and civil servants could be minimised by acknowledging that they are working to achieve a goal,” he said.
Governor Alex Otti declared the retreat, “Sustaining Momentum: Accelerating Execution,” open and charged the participants to urgently approach their assignments and governance.
Otti titled his speech “Eyes On The Ball” and said the retreat was designed as a leadership exposition, interactive session, and agenda-setting forum to identify operational bottlenecks and proffer solutions.
His words. “This administration is not going to be judged by the mediocre standards of the past administration because we were elected to raise the bar and raise it very high.”
He argued that during the retreat, they needed to see where and how their approach to the execution had deviated from the trajectory they sought to travel.
“The agenda for us all in this exercise shall be to collectively develop a robust execution template that will drive the attainment of our strategic governance target for the current fiscal year.”
“This retreat has been set up to underline how we shall run as a government this year. 2025 will be a crucial year for the state. So, we are required to exceed whatever we achieved in the past,” he added.
Earlier, the Secretary to the State Government, Kenneth Kalu, asserted that the government had achieved results in several areas, including infrastructure development, health, and education.
He charged the participants with reflecting on and mapping out strategies to achieve the government’s goals and urged them not to be satisfied with their current situation.
