Chief (Dr.) Moses Nwan, a retired Permanent Secretary, is a policy analyst, administrator, and Executive Personal Secretary to Plateau State governor, Caleb Manasseh Muftwang. In this interview with ISAAC SHOBAYO, he speaks on the operations of the civil service and erroneous notions people have about civil servants. As Muftwang’s personal secretary, he outlines the achievements of the Plateau governor amid the current national challenges. Excerpts:
AS a bureaucrat and seasoned administrator, what is responsible for low productivity in the public service?
In terms of low productivity in public service, you cannot entirely blame the civil servants. The reason being that not much attention is being given to training and re-training by the government at different levels. And I think that anybody who is engaged by the government will require some form of training so that he or she will be acquainted with the operations and procedures that govern public service. Unfortunately, training has been lacking, and for those who might be privileged to be trained, it could be referred to as self-development. There hasn’t been any deliberate plan or effort by the government in terms of training, and that has somehow affected the level of performance in the civil service. Aside from training, there has been a huge gap in the civil service. Those who might have gone through training have retired, and there wasn’t any plan for recruitment or to understudy those who would be retiring. So these principal factors account for low performance in the civil service: lack of training and recruitment of the new hands to understudy those that have retired. There are other miscellaneous reasons, but these two are basically responsible for low performance in the civil service. That is not to say that the civil servants are not performing or productive; they are performing according to their abilities. But there would have been a better push if they had had the opportunity to go through training and to understudy those who had retired.
The impression being created is that civil servants, probably due to the nature of their daily routine activities, are not well groomed for retirement compared to their counterparts in the private sector. What is your view on this?
I don’t believe in the saying or belief that civil servants are lazy. But let me remind you that the public service is governed by rules and regulations, and government businesses operate with a clout of bureaucracy because all schedules given to you have been defined; you can’t go outside your schedule, and it provides for the civil servants to think outside the box, unlike those in the military who work on a regimental basis. But for the civil servants, it is purely bureaucracy, and they operate on that platform. Though there might be some underperformance in some aspects, this might arise as a result of a lack of effective supervision. If you give somebody an assignment to do, it is incumbent on you to once in a while supervise the person. So I defer completely to a reasonable extent that the civil servants are lazy. But as I said earlier, if you don’t train me, as soon as you enrolled me as a fresh graduate, [there will be a performance gap], because there is a practical departure from what I learned at the university. If you hire me, it is expected that you give me some form of training. Only a few of us, while I was in the service, had the privilege to be trained.
But don’t you think there should also be pre-retirement training as it is being done in other places because when you retire at the age of 60 or on account of clocking 35 years in service, what becomes of that person after retirement because those in this category are not old?
My advice is that when you have hired somebody to work for 35 years as a responsible employer, you should know that after a certain number of years, the person you employ will exit the service. So it is incumbent on the government to ensure that they provide pre-retirement training. I will recommend 10 years to the retirement of an officer, and he or she should be subjected to some kind of pre-retirement training to prepare him for the life after, because if he had given his best for the number of years you have hired him, it is morally right that you give him some tips on what he needs to do when he retires. That will take me to my contributions. Prior to my retirement, I realized that the government was not doing enough training for civil servants, and I knew that my time would soon be up. I deliberately made a plan to train a number of civil servants in phases within working hours since the government doesn’t have the resources to organize in-house training. Quite a lot of them today are still in the civil service. That was my personal effort. By the time they are out of service, they should be useful to themselves and to the community in which they find themselves. And also, you prepare their minds that one day they will exit and how they are going to earn a living outside of their pensions. So I feel that pre-retirement training is absolutely necessary to prepare those who have worked all their lives for retirement and how they can cater for their lives after retirement.
There is ongoing agitation by the organised labour for a salary increment due to the high cost of living in the country. Some state governments have agreed to pay a certain amount that one could see as grossly inadequate. Do you think this is justifiable?
I appreciate the government’s thought for the increase in salary for civil servants. It is also necessary to say that as salary increases, certain parameters should be considered to ensure that while they are still in the civil service, they live a life that can meet their needs and those of their households. The increase is not the end of the matter, but it should be done in line with the resources that are available. If the government says I will pay civil servants N500,000 per month, the question we should ask is: did the government have the capacity to pay? It is necessary that wages be increased based on the situation on the ground. When you look at the cost of items that are required to be used by households, including school fees, the wage bill as it is today certainly cannot pay those bills. But the government can be appreciated by taking some steps further, and that is to say, the government is conscious of the fact that the money they paid cannot meet the needs of the civil servants. The government is taking some steps further, but as the resources improve, the government can do better than that. It might not meet the needs of public servants, but I think the government should be appreciated. Any increment should also spur the government to work harder because it is the civil servants that will generate the revenue.
You are an alumnus of an elite institute, the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) Kuru in Plateau State, but the general observation over the years is that it is those who are about to be retired that are being sent to the institute. If that is the case, what is the essence of the knowledge acquired?
The impression before us is that when someone has a year to retire, he is sent to NiPSS. I think that will not be the purpose for which one is sent to go and research in NiPSS because this is all about research and the development of policies that would guide the government in her business. But I want to tell you that NIPSS has taken the position that if you have less than three years, you cannot be admitted to NIPSS because the intention is that what you might have learned in the course of your research will be deployed to provide an improved service in whatever government department you are coming from. So NIPSS now says that if you have less than three years, you will not be admitted. Even after I left NIPSS when the decision was taken, there were organizations that nominated candidates who were approved by Mr. President and sent to NIPSS but were rejected because they had a year or two to retire from service. The essence was that they might not be able to apply what they might have learned to the public service. But that is not to say that the training they might have acquired is not important. It is important because the scope of the training that you receive in NIPSS is not limited to the public service only; you can deploy it even when you are outside the public service.
Sir, you are one of the critical stakeholders in the administration of Governor Muftwang. What is your assessment of the journey so far?
Prior to the inauguration of this administration, during the transition period, I was one of the first to be appointed by Governor Caleb Manasseh Muftwang as a senior special assistant with special duties. After the inauguration, I was one of the first three: the Secretary to the Governor of the State, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, and the Executive Private Secretary to the Governor, which is myself. We were the first three to be appointed. I feel that it is a privilege, an honour that I will never take for granted, and a recognition by His Excellency that I am found worthy to be entrusted with the responsibility of the government. Truly, I appreciate that, and I will forever remain indebted to him because there are many eminently qualified people in the state who would have been appointed prior to the inauguration and after the inauguration. And for me to have found myself among the first appiontees of His Excellency, I cherish that much. And to the question that you asked me, I don’t think I should be the one to rate this administration because it would amount to rating myself as a part and parcel of this administration. This government is a government brought on board by the people of Plateau State; it is a righteous government; it is a government that fears God. It is in that light that I can rate this administration within one year, considering the few things that we have been able to do. I can rate the government 75 percent based on what this government has been able to do.
I will not castigate any government before the present one; they did the best they could, but we have different philosophies about governance. Our philosophy is service, and the coming on board of this administration was a triumphant one. When the governor emerged, it was a celebration, and I see this as an act of God, and that is why the governor has been challenged to provide service to the people. And I know the provision of service is a subject of leadership, and he has truly provided leadership. It is not because he is my principal; he is my principal with a difference, and by the special grace of God, I have worked under different governments as a public servant, but I have seen a complete departure from leadership. When you have a leader who is listening and puts everything on the table for what is to be done, that has, to a greater extent, provided a platform within which to see development. And like my principal will always say, Plateau people haven’t seen anything yet because, as far as my principal is concerned, nothing has been worth any celebration, considering what he has put on paper to be done. But for now, I can say that the governor has started well and he is doing well. I will implore Plateau people to continue to pray for him.
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