Why Lagos workforce must play on global scene – official

Lagos State commissioner for establishments, training and pensions, Akintola Oke, says as the fifth largest economy in Africa, Lagos as a state cannot afford not to play on the global scene, hence the need for training and retraining of its workforce.
According to Oke, training of the workforce, therefore, is to continually build confidence and capacity for efficient service delivery, as the days are gone when the public would accept just anything from the government.
“We must be challenged to aspire to the high standards of governance that the citizens expect from the government,” Oke said, adding that as the ones responsible for the formulation and execution of the government policies, the officers of the state civil service were expected to open their minds to new ideas.
The commissioner, spoke at a two-day training session for different categories of the state workers, with the theme ‘integrating contemporary business leadership into the corporate governance model of the Lagos State civil service,’ Thursday, in Lagos.
He said the public was increasingly craving for satisfaction, which should not be taken for granted.
He noted that the goal of the state government was to satisfy the citizens by closing the knowledge gap, hence the continuous training of civil servants to put them on sound pedestal to rightly inform and guide the public about the processes in government.
“By providing the citizens with the information they need on how to process a request in an easy-to-use resource, the citizens can adequately prepare to complete their transactions and the processes in one visit. Officials are to ensure that the citizens have a positive experience interacting with the government.
“Also providing the citizens with information regarding government budgets, for example, can contribute to constituents feeling that they are part of a community development process, and as such, cultivate citizen buy-in,” Oke said.
It would be recalled that the state governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, also recently stressed the need for the civil servants to have a competitive edge over their counterparts in other parts of the world.
Ambode said as the fifth largest economy in Africa, Lagos could not afford not to play on the global scene. According to Ambode, the end result would be that anywhere in the world, Lagos public servants could compete effectively with their counterparts.
He observed that the delivery of value to the citizens was the fundamental objective of any democratically-elected government, adding that training is a vision with which government’s objectives, processes and services meet the contemporary global standards and reasonable expectations of the citizens.

JOSHUA BASSEY