Public service workforce better than private sector’s –ASCON DG

Could you juts briefly tell us about of ASCON. Before ASCON was started, there was the Institute of Administration at the then University of Ife to carry out trying needs of the public service. It happened when there was perceived managerial credibility gap in the country shortly after independence to occupy the positions occupied by […]

Could you juts briefly tell us about of ASCON.

Before ASCON was started, there was the Institute of Administration at the then University of Ife to carry out trying needs of the public service. It happened when there was perceived managerial credibility gap in the country shortly after independence to occupy the positions occupied by our colonialists. They were also commissioned in 1967 to carry out a survey and they submitted the report in 1968.

One major recommendation they made was that a civil service academy be established. But government decided that the administrative staff college of Nigeria will be established and that was how ASCON came into being through Decree No. 39 of 1973. In fact, one other recommendation they made was that, the academy be housed in the University of Ife. Government decided the staff college be on its own conducting its own trainings and raising programmes for both the public and private sector of the economy.

So ASCON was established with a number of objectives principally for training and human capacity building, for research, consultancy and for publications. We have been upgrading since then.

ASCON was established a long ago. Why is it inaugurating its alumni association now and what do you hope to achieve with it?

The alumni association was established in 1998 but people were not conscious about it for reasons I can’t explain. Perhaps because most past members were busy with their private affairs or better still because the economy then was relatively okay so alumni contributions were deemphasised.

But the time has come when we need all supports. They are now experienced people, they have known both inside and outside of ASCON, thus they are in a better position to advise us. We are doing this national launch to create awareness about the alumni so members can be more conscious of their responsibilities like giving us jobs and participants.

Highlights at the formal inauguration would include a public lecture, to be delivered by a onetime DG of ASCON, Professor L. Adele Jinadu. We expect to honour people who have contributed to the growth of the college. The immediate past president, Olusegun Obasanjo is one of them and First Lady Turai Yar’adua. Past alumni like the governor of Oyo State, Otumba Adebayo Alao Akala will chair the occasion and the Governor of Gombe State Muhammadu Danjuma Goje. We have other alumni like past and present Permanent and Secretaries, retired and serving military officers, ASCON staff both retired and serving will also be there as ASCONIANS.

How many people have passed through this college since inception?

In the early stage of ASCON, records were not captured properly. A number of manpower development programmes were conducted which were not captured properly. But right now, on record, we have close to 135,000. But I do know that many have passed through ASCON. If you put all of them together, it is about one million.

Talking about the present civil service quality, are you satisfied? It is publicly held that the quality of the public service is poor.

No, I think we should be more concerned about the quality of the private sector which to me is dropping too fast.

But the private sector complains that the civil service is not offering the kind of service they need to function properly.

The quality of service in the public service based on my own understanding has improved. It is the private sector that is living on past glory. It is the private sector that is not delivering quality service as it should be. I have had a lot of contact with the private sector. Apart from few who are doing well, majority of them are just groping. Look at the banks for instance, most industries have closed down so you can see a lot of inefficiency today in the private sector more than in the public sector.

I know that we are not perfect, but so is the private sector. The way people are descending on the public sector, I think it is wrong. It is just a situation of giving a dog a bad name just to hang it.

So why are we privatising public organisations on argument that the public sector couldn’t effectively manage them?

Let me put the question to you. The ones privatised, how have they been running? That suggests that no hope in the private sector either. I don’t believe in privatisation the way it was conducted. I sincerely believe that all we need do is to come together. When people need training, train them. The public service needs a lot of training as they progress in their career and that is what the current Head of Service is working on now. Before you are promoted, you must be trained and examined.

Are you in support of the current policy by the Head of Service that no Permanent Secretary should be in office for more than eight years irrespective of his or her retiring time?

It is not him [Orosanye] really, it is government. Government has reasons to believe it is good for the service. There are people who for a long time couldn’t advance in their careers. You are a director for instance and the position you are supposed to step in is blocked. The man who is there has been occupying the post for over eight years, and has not reached retirement. We were having a situation where the people below were retiring earlier than those at the top. This killed their initiatives and zeal. Their skills were not fully utilised. This is the rationale for the policy.

What are the challenges that you face in ASCON?

The most critical one is power. We run on generator between 18 and 20 hours per day. And Badagry has been zoned out of power supply by PHCN, because for months we don’t see public power in Badagry, I don’t know why. So, we really burn our funds on fuel.

The challenge of accommodation is there too. We don’t have enough accommodation for participants. Another challenge is that we don’t have enough participants. We used to have the challenge of facilities in the training rooms, but the office of the Special Adviser to the president on MDGs [Millennium Development Goals] and the office of the Head of Service have come together to bail us out. So 15 training rooms are now going to be equipped with modern training facilities. One major challenge now is training our own staff particularly on the external exposure aspect. Most of our staff don’t have external exposure, training methodologies, new management techniques, interaction with other people.

You are calling for more participants. Do you have the capability to effectively manage them, given the challenges you mentioned?

Yes, we have about 89 trainers in the college in different disciplines: Accountancy, Management, Economics, Finance, and they have been training participants. All of them are exposed to ICT. But train –the-trainers’ programme is a continuous thing, it is never enough.

Yes, we have capacity but we are upgrading too. Right now we have 52 chalets in the college, 176 double room and 132 standard rooms to accommodate participants. We ceded a block of 44 rooms to NIMASA about three years ago which they haven’t utilised and we are asking government to return it to us.  We are planning a 60-bed participants hostel which will be launched at the inauguration of the Alumni. When we have all this in addition with what we have, we will have a campus here in Badagry to accommodate more people.