Tag: FG

In a significant move to strengthen its anti-corruption efforts, the Federal Government has announced the establishment of Anti-Corruption and Transparency Units (ACTUs) within all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs). 

This initiative, approved by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) upon request from the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), aims to foster a culture of integrity and transparency within the civil service.

Mrs. Lydia Shehu Jafiya, Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, flagged off the first sensitization workshop for 2024 under the Ministry’s ACTU.  She highlighted the critical role civil servants play in upholding ethical standards.

She emphasised the importance of leadership setting the tone by demonstrating integrity and excellence, senior civil servants can inspire others to follow suit. She also reminded civil servants that they are entrusted with safeguarding public trust noting that corruption in any form erodes this trust and hinders national progress.

The Permanent Secretary stressed the importance of adhering to the ICPC Scorecard Template, a tool designed to measure progress towards anti-corruption goals. 

Jafiya underscored that corruption extends beyond financial crimes. It encompasses acts of omission, negligence, and soliciting commissions while performing official duties.  This broader definition emphasizes the need for vigilance and ethical conduct in all aspects of government work.

The sensitisation workshop specifically targeted Directorate Cadre Officers (GL 15-17).  The goals of the workshop, as outlined by Mrs. Egundebi Yemisi, Director of Special Duties, are to: equip Directors with a deeper understanding of how to systematically evaluate processes and procedures within their departments; foster collaborative discussions to identify areas where systems can be strengthened and organizational effectiveness can be enhanced; and guide Directors on leveraging the ICPC Scorecard Template as a tool to measure progress towards anti-corruption objectives.

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The initiative aligns with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s “Renewed Hope Agenda,” which prioritizes good governance and transparency. Mrs. Jafiya emphasized the Ministry’s commitment to working with the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, to achieve zero tolerance for corruption within the Ministry.

The Federal Government has approved the disbursement of N25 billion through the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) to bolster healthcare infrastructure in states.

Prof. Muhammed Pate, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, made this known on Saturday in Abuja at the sixth meeting of the BHCPF Ministerial Oversight Committee.

Pate said that the funds were designated for direct facility financing and workforce incentives across states.

The minister said that the initiative was in line with President Bola Tinubu’s agenda and commitment to improving healthcare outcomes for Nigerian women, children, and vulnerable populations. 

He said that the disbursement would be facilitated through gateways including the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA).

“This substantial investment underscores our dedication to enhancing healthcare infrastructure and supporting our healthcare workforce.

“In addition to direct facility financing and workforce incentives, a portion of the funds will be allocated by the NHIA to provide financial protection for the poorest and most vulnerable populations, further ensuring equitable access to healthcare services,” he added. 

The minister announced the establishment of a dedicated reporting mechanism for citizens to report any misuse or deviation from guidelines regarding the disbursement of the funds. 

“An email address and reporting line will be made available, enabling citizens to actively participate in monitoring fund implementation.

“We are committed to ensuring that healthcare resources are utilised effectively and transparently. 

“Regular monitoring and oversight will be conducted to uphold the fiduciary integrity of healthcare systems, ensuring that Nigerians benefit from these resources,” Pate said. 

Dr Oyebanji Filani, who spoke on behalf of Commissioners for Health and Human Services, pledged that all the states would prioritise the quality of care provided Nigerians even after leaving hospital. 

Filani highlighted their plan to strengthen public health units and ensure frontline health workers and civil servants receive necessary support.

“We are committed to ensuring that every Nigerian has access to good quality healthcare services. 

“By bolstering resources at the state level and fostering stronger collaboration with the federal government, we aim to significantly improve the quality of healthcare services in the near future,” he added. 

He expressed optimism about the potential impact of these efforts.

“With a focus on enhancing healthcare delivery nationwide, stakeholders anticipate tangible improvements in health services across the country,” Filani said. 

Read Also: FG urged to divest 51 per cent share of refineries to investors

In his comment, Dr Muyi Aina, the Executive Director, NPHCDA, announced series of initiatives aimed at ensuring accountability and enhancing service delivery. 

Muyi emphasised the importance of transparency in expenditure and announced the establishment of a dedicated call line for whistleblowers to report any discrepancies or malpractices observed in the field.

He said that the government would leverage software technology to track expenditure at the facility level, and ensure funds allocated are utilised appropriately. 

“Our goal is to ensure that every Nigerian has access to the basic services they need,” he said.   

Dr Kelechi Ohiri, Director-General of NHIA,  underscored the importance of ensuring financial access to healthcare for all Nigerians by reducing out-of-pocket payments for healthcare services. (NAN)

The federal government has appointed, Dr. Uzoma Friday Ibeaja, as the acting rector for the Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Owerri.

In a statement by the institution’s public relations officer, Everest Nwosu on Thursday, March 28, said Dr. Ibeaja was appointed acting rector following the expiration of the tenure of Dr. Christopher Onyemenonu on March 10.

In a letter Ref DTE/Poly/1073/C. I/T/1/42 dated March 22, 2024, the Minister of Education appointed Dr. Ibeaja as acting rector with effect from March 11, 2024.

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According to the statement, Ibeaja would remain the acting rector pending the appointment of a substantive rector in line with the Polytechnic Act as amended.

Before his appointment, Ibeaja was the deputy rector of the administration of the institution.

The Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) has taken decisive steps to enhance policy implementation tracking within the Federal Civil Service by reconstituting its Delivery Team.

This was stated by Mr. Raymond Omenka Omachi CFA, the Permanent Secretary of the Common Service Office (CSO) within the OHCSF, during the inauguration of a two-day workshop aimed at engaging stakeholders on the office’s deliverables.

The workshop, held from March 26th to 27th, 2024 in Abuja, served as a platform to outline the OHCSF’s strategies for evaluating policy execution.

Omachi informed Performance Bond agreement was signed by the Head of Service of the Federation, Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during a cabinet retreat in November 2023. This agreement underscores the commitment of the government to ensure accountability and efficiency in service delivery.

Highlighting the OHCSF’s objectives, Mr. Omachi outlined nine deliverables with forty-two Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to be closely monitored, commencing from the first quarter of 2024. Additionally, seven high-impact deliverables with thirty-one sub-deliverables have been identified for focused attention.

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Furthermore, the Permanent Secretary highlighted the recent 3rd Technical Review Retreat organized by the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Policy and Coordination & Head Delivery Coordination Unit (CDCU) in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. The retreat aimed to equip delivery managers and desk officers with the necessary skills to manage and drive delivery effectively.

During the workshop, participants engaged in technical sessions covering topics such as an overview of presidential priorities, understanding OHCSF deliverables, and utilizing delivery report frameworks and templates.

In his address, Mr. Ayanda Muftau, Director of Planning, Analytics, and Monitoring (PAM) within the OHCSF, emphasized the workshop’s significance in enhancing the tracking of government policies, programs, and projects across eight priority areas of the current administration. He stressed the importance of developing robust systems to ensure timely and accurate reporting of achievements.

Participants at the workshop were drawn from various Ministries, Departments, and Agencies whose deliverables are intricately linked to the OHCSF’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), signaling a collaborative effort towards effective policy implementation and service delivery.

In a bid to acknowledge and reward innovation within the Federal Civil Service, the government has disbursed a total sum of N7.8 million to deserving winners of the Federal Civil Service Innovation Competition.

During a prestigious Award Presentation Ceremony held in Abuja, Dr. Folasade Yemi-Esan, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, unveiled the recipients of this year’s honours.

The event marked the culmination of the 4th Edition of the competition, which has been a beacon of creativity and ingenuity since its inception in 2020.

Among the highlights of the ceremony was the announcement of the top three winners, who received substantial cash prizes for their outstanding contributions.

The star prize winner was awarded a remarkable N3 million, while the first and second runners-up received N1.75 million and N1 million respectively. Additionally, ten other innovators were recognized with consolation prizes of N200,000 each.

The competition, which attracted a robust participation of 203 submissions, showcased the depth of talent and dedication within the civil service.

From the initial pool, 99 civil servants engaged in the rigorous process, which involved multiple rounds of pitching and evaluation. The final round, held on March 22, 2024, saw intense competition among 14 finalists, culminating in the selection of the top three winning ideas.

Reflecting on the significance of innovation in public service, Dr. Yemi-Esan emphasized, “Innovation is about identifying problems, stirring up creativity, and engaging in divergent thinking to derive solutions to improve the quality of life.”

The thematic areas of the competition spanned Reward and Performance Management, Mentorship and Succession Planning, as well as Talent Management and Knowledge Transfer through E-Learning.

In her address, Magdalene Ajani, Permanent Secretary, Special Duties Office, Office of the Head of Service, underscored the transformative impact of innovation in addressing complex challenges facing governments worldwide.

“The competition provides a veritable platform to showcase and celebrate the ingenuity, creativity, and problem-solving prowess of civil servants,” she remarked.

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The commitment to fostering innovation in the public service aligns with the government’s broader agenda of accelerating diversification through industrialization, digitization, creative arts, manufacturing, and innovation.

Efforts to enhance governance for effective service delivery and elevate Nigeria’s ranking in the Global Innovation Index are underway, signaling a concerted push towards sustainable development and progress.

As civil servants continue to demonstrate excellence and innovation in their respective roles, the Federal Civil Service remains poised to lead by example, driving positive change and delivering tangible benefits to citizens across the nation.

The National Orientation Agency (NOA) has disclosed plans to engage cartoon creators to produce local contents as part of measures to bridge the parenting gap and ensure good value systems.

The agency said plans are also underway to partner with the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to make it compulsory for television stations and schools to ensure that 60 percent of the contents are local and about the country.

It also said the agency would engage 37,000 citizen brigades in primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions across the country to promote national values.

The agency, while lamenting that the contents currently watched by most children in Nigeria were foreign and alien to Nigeria’s culture, said the measures by the agency will bridge the parenting gap.

The director general of the NOA, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, revealed this in Abuja at a stakeholders’ workshop on parenting programmes in Nigeria supported by Parenting For Life Long Health (PLH) and Global Parenting Initiative, University of Oxford.

Issa-Onilu explained that some parents have left the bulk of their responsibilities to schools.

He said insecurity, economic crisis, poverty, unemployment and deprivation over the years, have also hindered the positive socialization of family members.

The DG while the agency has noticed that there is increasing challenge for the school system to make up for the family lapses, added that many African children grow up in homes with absentee parents and little or no outside contact.

On the steps taken to address the challenges witnessed in families, Issa-Onilu said: “Steps we are currently taking at the NOA with regards to en-placing responsible parenting includes; our current engagements with cartoon creators with a view to ensuring that the cartoons that our children watch going forward, are reflective of our heroes, our culture, our folklore, our diversity, our challenges and our victories.

“We are taking these engagements with cartoon creators with the highest degree of seriousness and commitment because, even though many of you may not have noticed, we are currently raising foreigners in our various homes across Nigeria.

“The cartoon contents that our children spend hours watching and which shape their character and worldview do not project the nuances of our culture and values.

“We have already commenced the process of curating the type of local content that our children should be watching which should be reflective of our national values. We will be partnering with the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) which has the regulatory role to play in terms of what content appears on our television.”

He continued: “You will agree with me that even in pre-nursery and early primary schools, the children most times spend their time watching foreign cartoons.

“If you pay attention to what is going in other countries now in terms of value orientation, you will realize that it is far apart from the way and manner we want to live our lives. So, we need to pay attention to that.

“We are going to work with the regulatory agency to ensure that it becomes compulsory for television stations whether cable or terrestrial and including schools to in the next one year make sure that 60 percent of the content are local and about ourselves.

“Imagine the boy in Ibadan, because of cartoon, he understands the people of New York more than the people of Enugu because he is exposed to them on a daily basis and he does not know anything about the people he lives in the same country with. So, when we begin to talk about ourselves using cartoon and many other platforms, then we will begin to appreciate ourselves and the nation can evolve through that process”.

On the plan to introduce Citizen Brigade to schools, Issa-Onilu said: “The NOA is in the process of establishing Citizens Brigades in Secondary and Primary schools. The plan in the short term, is to establish 1000 per state in the 36 states and the FCT, making 37,000 citizens brigades promoting the contents of the National Values Chatter in the first instance.

“The core purpose of this is to familiarize our children from their formative stage with the promises that Nigeria is making to them and the commitments that they in turn owe to the country and their fellow citizens.

“In this way, we intend to develop children who are values-conscious. Our advocacy on the National Values Chatter emphasises the centrality of responsible parenting. It is intended that the contents of the National Values Chatter which will be launched soon by President Bola Tinubu will form part of our schools curriculum throughout the period of schooling from primary to tertiary level”.

Read Also: FG to carry out census of schools

The representative of PLH from Oxford University, Dr. Isang Awah said the study has shown that parents need intervention to raise children better.

She also said the current humanitarian crisis have made parents to be unintentionally cruel to their children.

She said: “Based on our findings, there is need for parents to be supported with interventions.

“I don’t think that any parent gives birth to children and decides to be cruel to their children but security challenges, financial hardship, unemployment, and other issues have made it difficult for parents to raise children. Some of the parents don’t have the skill to do better which is why we need to support them with the knowledge and skill to parent their children”.

The federal government says it hopes to soon begin the export of skilled workers especially welders and technicians to other African countries and the World in general.

It said when skills acquisition is well coordinated, it can be exported and the nation earns forex.

Minister of State for Steel Development, Uba Maigari Ahmadu made this known in Abuja while playing host to the management of the welding federation committee.

He said the government is doing a lot in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda and Nigerians can Hope to start seeing results in a year or two.

He said, “When we coordinate Skills acquisition very well in the country, we can export skilled not only welders but also skilled technicians to Africa and the World, earn forex and bring it back home.

“We are doing a lot and in line with President Tinubu’s renewed hope agenda, by the time we aggregate all these together, I am sure Nigerians would begin to see results in a year or two.”

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Welding Federation, Ayo Ogtan said jobs would not always exist in Nigeria, so Nigerians must learn to integrate.

He said when the country integrates there is a web way, a multiple-dimensional way where it starts starting up different areas of specialisation.

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He added: “Maybe a Nigerian would become a specialist in the pipeline. Some others would become specialists in ship construction. If you look at it, one of the key places where Africa has been robbed is in mineral development and mineral processing plants. A lot of the time most of the plants are foreign it is because we have not been able to develop skills, Africa focuses on oil and gas. So these are the multi-dimensional things which we are trying to solve.”

He said Nigeria in the past had trained quality welders, and 20 of those trained had the opportunity to be part of the welders that helped build the stadium in Brazil that was used for the World Cup.

The Federal Government has revealed it will receive 500 tractors assembled by the John Deere Group to improve mechanised farming.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, who made this known in a statement on Thursday in Abuja said the gesture would also increase food production and help the country achieve food and nutrition security.

Kyari stated that John Deere would deliver the 500 tractors by the end of May while more would be delivered in September.

He assured that the group would achieve the set target of 2,000 tractors yearly for the next five years as signed in Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry.

The minister explained that to increase agricultural yields, there was a need for tractors, saying that this was very important for growth in the agricultural sector.

He reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to improve food and nutrition security through mechanisation.

Kyari said that the tractors would be accessible, available, and affordable for small, large-scale, and cooperative farmers across the country.

He also revealed that federal government had procured 58,500 tons of milled rice from Rice Millers Association of Nigeria for stabilization of the market force.

” What we did not want to do, was to get to market and purchase food stuff.

” We have appealed to World Food Programme (WFP), which is a United Nation’s based Agency, not to make bulk purchase from the market so as not to exacerbate the food price inflation that we have now,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the initiative aimed at catalyzing farming activities, fortify the nation food and nutrition security in line with President Bola Tinubu’s emergency declaration on food security.

On the recently released fertilizer by the CBN to the ministry, the Minister stated that the release of 2.15 million bags of assorted fertilizer ranging from NPK, UREA and SSP, worth over N100  Billion Naira by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to Nigeria farmers was to enhance agricultural production.

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Kyari said  that the apex bank’s contribution would increase food production capabilities as well as encourage price stabilization in the agricultural sector.

He sad that the ministry had received the handing over letter and would commence the distribution of the various assorted fertilizers as soon as locations where they are warehoused is made available to the ministry

Kyari assured that the donation would be judiciously utilized and delivered to the intended farmers.

” As soon as we get the locations which I am sure is spread across the country, we will swing into action,” the minister said.

(NAN)