Restructuring Not Targeted at Sacking Civil Servants. DG @DrJoeAbah tells Gambian Visitors.

Director-General of the bureau, Joe Abah.

The Bureau of Public Service Reforms has said the ongoing restructuring in the civil service is not targeted at sacking any civil servant in the country.

The Director-General of the bureau, Joe Abah, made the disclosure in Abuja on Tuesday while exchanging views with officials of the Republic of Gambia who visited him in his office.

Abah said the bureau was working toward ensuring that there were no loopholes in the merger of some ministries.

He said the essence of the restructuring was to reduce the cost of governance and create a situation where there would not be duplication of functions in the civil service.

He said: “We have the implementation of the White Paper on the restructuring and rationalization of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

“The government has decided to merge ministries.

“In some cases, three ministries were merged into one.

“As far as the government is concerned, they believe that it will ensure effectiveness of government ministries, which will actually reduce overhead cost of office holders.”

Abah further explained that restructuring the civil service would go a long way in reducing the number of aides attached to ministers as well as sanitize the system to make it free from corruption.

He said: “We felt that reducing the numbers of ministries will also reduce the numbers of their aides.

|One thing we want to point out is that government is also mindful of the alarming rate of unemployment in the country and sacking civil servants is not in its agenda of restructuring.

“The BPSR is working hard to provide solutions to some of these challenges as it relates to restructuring and rationalisation of the civil service.”

Earlier, Alhaji Dawdah Fadera, the Permanent Secretary, Personnel Management Office of the President, Republic of Gambia, said the two countries were moving in the same direction to reform the civil service.

Fadera said the purpose of the visit was basically to exchange ideas on ways to improve the public service of his country.

He said that the country would begin to work on the demand from the public for basic service delivery to the citizenry.

He said: “Our challenges are similar; we have similar frameworks in place to move our sister countries toward the right direction.

“The most important thing is to build the capacity of workers to encourage citizenship engagement and participation in governance.

“What we are, therefore, taking home is that we are going to develop our own public service in the same direction as Nigeria has done.”

The Ministry of Power, Works and Housing used to be three separate ministries before the merger, just as aviation and transport were merged to become Ministry of Transportation. (THE EAGLE)