EL-RUFAI ON FRIDAY
Reforming our Dysfunctional Public Service
By
Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai
nelrufai@yahoo.com
Public Service in Context
It is both a truism that
no nation develops beyond the capacity of its public service, and there is
broad consensus amongst Nigerians that our public service is broken and
dysfunctional. The quality of public servants and the services they
provide to our nation are both below expectations. From the glorious days
at independence when the best and brightest graduates competed to join the
administrative service up until 1970s, our public service is now seen as
employer of the dull, the lazy and the venal. We need to retrieve our old
public service - effective, well paid and largely meritocratic, attracting
bright people imbibed with a spirit of promoting public good.
The Nigerian civil
service evolved from the colonial service with its historical British
roots of an independent, non-political and meritocratic administrative
machinery for governing the country. Each region then had its civil
service in addition to the federal service.
What is the public
service? How did our public evolve from inception to excellence and now
its current abysmal state of ineffectiveness? How can the public service
be reformed, re-skilled and right-sized to provide the basic social
services that will earn the trust of Nigerians and foreigners alike?
The Public Service
- An Overview
The public service
consists of the civil service - career staff whose appointment, promotion
and discipline are under the exclusive control of the Federal Civil
Service Commission (FCSC), national assembly service, the Judiciary,
public officers in the military, police and paramilitary services,
employees of parastatals, educational and health institutions. By
September 2005, when the Public Service Reform Team (PSRT) was
constituted, the number of federal public servants was slightly above one
million. The estimated number working for the 36 states and the FCT was
another 2 million, broken down as follows:
• Federal Core Civil Servants, including some 2,000 directors 180,000
• Uniformed Services - Military, Police and Paramilitary Services 457,000
• Parastatals, Agencies, Educational and Health Institutions 470,000
• Total Federal Public Service 1,107,000
• Public Officers at the State Level - 36 States (Estimate) 856,000
• Public Officers in the Federal Capital Territory Administration 19,000
• Public Officers at the 774 Local Governments and 6 FCT Area Councils
620,000
• Total Sub-National Public Service 1,495,000
• TOTAL: Public Sector Employees in Nigeria 2,602,000
Adjusting for the increasing numbers of aides of the president, ministers,
governors and legislators, it is not unreasonable to put the total number
of those working directly for governments at about three million. So while
our national population has increased by about 160% between 1960 and 1999,
the size of our public service increased by 350% in the same period. Our
public service is clearly over-bloated.
Other initial diagnostics and findings of the PSRT were sobering to say
the least. The civil service was rapidly ageing, mostly untrained and
largely under-educated. Their average age then was 42 years, and over 60%
were over 40 years. Less than 12% of the public servants held university
degrees or equivalent. Over 70% of the service were of the junior grades
01-06, of sub-clerical and equivalent skills. About 20% of the public
service employees were 'ghost workers' - non-existent people on the
payroll which goes to staff of personnel and accounts departments. In the
FCT, out of an initial headcount of 26,000, we found 3,000 ghosts in the
first round of audit. By the time we introduced biometric ID and
centralized, computerized payroll, we found nearly 2,500 who failed to
show up for documentation!
While the public service pay is low relative to the cost of living, the
overall burden of payroll as a percentage of the budget is huge. In most
states other than Lagos, Kano, Kaduna and Rivers States, an average of 50%
of the budget goes towards the payment of salaries - to about 1% of their
population - an unfair and unsustainable state of affairs! Out of the
N2,425 billion included in the 2011 Budget for recurrent expenditure,
between 73% and 84% for each MDA constitutes personnel cost. We found in
2005 that the breakdown of federal public service emoluments by class of
service as follows:
• Core Civil Service - 18%
• Military, Police and Paramilitary - 35%
• Parastatals, Education and Health - 47%
The PSRT inherited a federal public service whose central management
organs - the FCSC and the office of the Head of Civil Service of the
Federation had become inept and ineffective, and morally flexible at best.
We learnt that appointments, promotion examinations, promotions, postings
and discipline were bought and sold by civil servants the same way shares
are traded on the stock market. Surprisingly and with some relief, we did
not see these malfunctions in the armed services. The HR system of the
Army, Navy and the Air Force were intact, and to some extent even the
Police and other paramilitary services had better human resource
management systems.
In a State of Denial?
The bulk of the public
servants continue to be in denial and have refused to take responsibility
for the sorry state of affairs, blaming their political masters for the
dysfunction in the public service. They blame the collapse of merit and
excellence in the public service on the Murtala-Obasanjo retirements "with
immediate effect" that occurred in the mid-1970s. Others attribute the
current situation to the Civil Service Reform Decree No. 43 of 1988 of the
Babangida administration. The deterioration of pay and fringe benefits
relative to the cost of living as a result of the Structural Adjustment
Program in the late 1980s has also been identified as contributory to the
de-motivation, deskilling and dispiriting of the public service.
The truth may be a combination of all three and more, compounded by the
inability of the public service to update its attitudes, working methods,
skills and technology. The public service has been short-term in its
vision, self-centered in policy formulation and corrupt in programme
implementation. Instead, it has focused on taking care of itself and
interests to the detriment of the nation and system which sustains it. The
public service failed to reform itself between 2001 and 2005 when two
successive Heads of Civil Service were tasked to do so. It was therefore
inevitable that driving the public service reforms of 2005-2007 had to be
transferred to the economic team, with President Obasanjo leading the
charge himself. An outsider was needed to administer the required
medicine, but still needed the cooperation of the patient, which was not
forthcoming.
Public Service
Reforms in Perspective
It is therefore
uncontestable that the public service became dysfunctional following years
of neglect and failure to reform. The public service was both large and
unwieldy, accountability was weak and professional standards low. The
federal bureaucracy has also sprawled with considerable overlap of
functions between agencies, and between tiers and arms of government.
There was an urgent need for both civil service and parastatals reforms,
and in spite of all efforts, little progress has been made in that regard.
The need to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the public
service have been recognized from pre-independence days by instituting
several administrative reforms. The first of these was the Tudor Davis
Commission of 1945-46. The Morgan Commission of 1963 not only revised
salaries and wages of junior staff of the federal government but
introduced for the first time a minimum wage for each region of the
country. The more recent ones include the commissions headed by Simeon
Adebo (1971), Jerome Udoji (1972), Dotun Philips (1986) and the Allison
Ayida Panel (1995). The Dotun Philips reforms properly and correctly
aligned the civil service structure with the constitution and presidential
system of government , designating permanent secretaries as
directors-general and deputy ministers. Unfortunately, the reforms
devolved human resource functions with respect to junior cadres to
ministries with disastrous consequences which needed dealing with.
The Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) was established in September
2003 as an independent agency in the Presidency to ensure the reform of
all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of all arms and branches
of the federal government, and submit quarterly reports to the President.
The Public Service Reform Team (PSRT) had the BPSR as its secretariat and
met weekly every Tuesday to deliver on its mandate. Some of the
achievements of that round of reforms include:
1. Restructuring of Pilot Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs): The
PSRT produced two generic guidelines approved by the Federal Executive
Council (FEC) in March 2006 for the reform and restructuring of MDAs and
Parastatals. Initially 5 pilot MDAs volunteered for restructuring and this
was expanded to 14. This entailed cleaning up the staff headcount and
payroll, and redesigning the MDA structure to have between 4 and 8
departments and 2-4 divisions per department. These were approved by the
FEC on May 16th, 2007 and applicable to all MDAs immediately.
2. Cleaning up of Civil Service and Parastatals Nominal Rolls: The
Oronsaye committee of the PSRT developed eight criteria for the retirement
of public servants to enable the clean-up of the headcount and reducing
the negative impact of the devolution of HR functions to MDAs in 1988, and
the failures of the FCSC and OHCSF to discharge their functions. An
appeals process was put in place to minimize victimization and errors.
For the civil service, about 45,000 names were prepared by MDAs and
forwarded to BPSR for consideration and approval by PSRT, and then
forwarded to the FCSC for removal. An initial batch of 36,843 officers
were put through pre-retirement training, disengaged and paid about N24
billion as their severance entitlements. Unfortunately, about 20,000 of
these severed civil servants have found their ways back into the civil
service, thereby defeating the clean-up exercise.
For the 400 or so parastatals and paramilitary services, the estimated
number of staff to be severed was 75,575 at a cost about N57 billion.
Parastatals reform and right-sizing was to be undertaken jointly by BPSR
and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE). Sadly, this was never fully
realized.
3. Monetization of Fringe Benefits: All benefits-in-kind like free
housing, furnishing, car and driver for various cadres of public servants
and political office holders were abolished for ministers, permanent
secretaries and equivalent cadres and below. All government-owned houses
except 13 classes of official residences were sold to occupants or via
public bids. All official vehicles were discounted by 50% and sold to
officials. Other pool and utility vehicles were auctioned in public bids.
Personal drivers, cooks and cleaners were laid off and made staff of the
affected officials.
4. Pay Reform and Medium-Term Pay Policy: The Ernest Shonekan Pay Review
Report was referred to PSRT for consideration and implementation. Shonekan
found that public service pay was on average 25% of private sector for the
same or similar jobs. A pay increase of 15% was therefore recommended and
effected in January 2007, with a plan to increase pay by 10% per annum but
linked to productivity such that in 5 years, near pay parity with the
private sector will be achieved.
5. Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS): This is a
computerized, biometric platform intended to provide a reliable and
comprehensive database of employees in the public service to facilitate
manpower planning, and eliminate headcount and payroll fraud. IPPIS
approved by the FEC in February 2006 and implemented in phases. The first
phase covering 6 MDAs and the central management organizations of the
public service went live in April 2007, saving N416 million from the
payroll of the 12 agencies in its first month! Sadly, the vested interests
in the public service have frustrated its mainstreaming and application to
cover all MDAs and other public service organizations since then.
6. Review and Update of Public Service Rules and Financial Regulations:
The BPSR undertook a holistic review of the Public Service Rules and
Financial Regulations and produced a White Paper which was amended and
approved by the FEC on 9th May 2007.
Another review committee led by Adamu Fika lamented the low morale and
widespread malaise in the service and observed that the integrity deficits
in the FCSC and the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation
are responsible for inefficiencies and corruption that have become
pervasive in the service.
Next Steps in Reforming the Public Service
This administration has a unique opportunity to correct these by
appointing not only a reformist head of civil service, but the nomination
of the chair and members of FCSC within the next few weeks with the
mandate to clean up the service, and build on the reforms of 2005 to 2009.
The next steps are clear. Learn from recent past, build on foundations
laid by PSRT and correct any errors we made. The quality of the public
service must be improved by attracting the best and brightest. This
requires reducing the current pay disparity between the public and private
sectors of the economy. To rejuvenate the service, new blood must be
injected at all levels from the academia, private sector and Nigerian
Diaspora based on merit. These will be impossible unless the ageing and
un-trainable public servants take early retirement.
Who can perform in today's work environment without the knowledge of IT,
of using Google, Twitter and BlackBerry messaging tools? Any public
servant that cannot use the computer and its various tools ought to give
way to our army of young people that can. The number of MDAs duplicating
functions, and their manning levels must be reviewed downwards to enable
our nation afford the higher pay that our public servants deserve. We
cannot maintain the same numbers we have and pay them any higher.
All these require careful thought, thorough collection and analysis of
data, and political will. Our public service is once again at a
cross-roads. It is up to the President to make the choices necessary to
make it better, or much worse.
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Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, OFR was Senior Policy Adviser to General Abdulsalami
Abubakar (1998-99), Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises
(1999-2003), Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Member of the
Economic Team, (2003-2007) and Chairman of the Public Service Reform Team
(2005-2007).
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