*Says Federal Civil Service Commission to Hold CBT Recruitment at 15 Centres
The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission ( FCSC), Prof.Tunji Olaopa, has disclosed that civil servants involved in malpractices in the 2024 promotional examinations have been handed over to the. Department of State Security ( DSS) for prosecution.
According to Olaopa, this is the first part of measures to sanitise the civil service and ensure the enthronement of meritocracy.
The professor of public administration and former federal permanent secretary spoke on Wednesday in Nasarawa State while declaring open a training programme for senior personnel of the FCSC.
He decried a situation where what existed in the civil service before his chairmanship of the commission was a culture of “cash and carry” whereby recruitment and the passing of promotional examinations were dependent on how much civil servants could pay.
His words: ” It must have been a culture shock to many candidates who sat for the 2024 promotion exercise who were involved in some malpractices that they were handed over to the Department of State Security (DSS) for prosecution. Indeed, the cases of candidates who got proxies to sit for them have equally been referred. It is therefore becoming clear to all and sundry that the era of ‘cash and carry’ recruitment and promotion in the federal civil service is over as no one involved in such corrupt practices will be spared .”
According to him, the second level in the implementation of the Commission’s Repositioning Plan entails the computerization and digitization of its core functions and activities.
“Consequently, the ongoing recruitment exercise was advertised with applications received via our recruitment portal. We are taking this further through entry-level assessment which will be conducted via computer-based tests (CBT) which will hold at 15 centres and state capitals around the country. The release of results and shortlisting of candidates will be fully transparent –
“Significant computerization is also going on at different levels of the Commission operations. In this regard, the commission expresses deep gratitude to the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation for taking on the electronic management system stream of this programme as technical support to the Federal Government of Nigeria –
“At its third level, the Commission is logging on to the ongoing Federal Service Reform Implementation Program on many fronts. Chiefly, the commission is instituting a performance management system that will be backstopped with a professionalized human resource management function. This will in due course see to the professionalisation of the secretariat of the commission as part of reform drive to restore competency-based human resource management practices in the federal service. We then hope to transform the commission into a centre of excellence for public service human resource problem-solving in Nigeria –
” There are of course a range of other reforms and changes that we are initiating. These will soon be carefully packaged into a strategic plan to be taken through rigorous stakeholders validation for ownership.”
On the training, he noted that its value “especially when it derives from the requirements of our work, trends that are shaping the public administration profession and a number of the reform initiatives to improve bureaucratic efficiency, strengthen service delivery and deepen the professionalism of officers cannot be overstated .”
He urged the participants to note that it was the beginning of a long process which would evolve methodically
” Indeed, as change is the only constant, only those of you that are not willing to change will be endangered as this whole dynamic unfolds.
“In this regard, the era of training without impact assessment that links training to performance management will soon be over. I simply enjoin you in line with the mantra of the Scouts, ‘be prepared’ and do not stand in the way of change, it will be dangerous.”