Oyo-Ita Takes over as Head of Service
Senator Iroegbu
The new Head of Service of the Federation (HOS), Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, has taken over the mantle of leadership from Mr. Danladi Kifasi, pledging to bring innovations that would help reposition the civil service for efficient, timely and quality service to Nigerians.
Oyo-Ita stated this yesterday in Abuja during a short handover ceremony from Kifasi, who formally retired from the civil service.
In her inaugural statement, she expressed commitment to the implementation of government policies and programmes that would improve the Federal Civil Service.
She said: “Today marks yet another important milestone in our desire to improve and re-engineer the Federal Civil service to effectively work as a machine for formulating and implementing government policies and programmes.
“At a time such as this when expectations of our people on the new government are so huge, we have to be innovative and reposition ourselves to deliver efficient, timely and quality services to meet the desires of our people.”
Speaking further, Oyo-Ita urged civil servants to key into the federal government’s agenda for change, poverty reduction and social transformation.
The HOS also called for unreserved support and cooperation of all the permanent secretaries so as to “deepen the existing collaboration in the service and team up for the implementation of government development agenda with excellence.”
Also speaking, the immediate past HOS advocated for improved capacity building and leadership enhancement of civil servants through the on-going Structured Mandatory Assessment-based Training Programme (SMAT-P) and the leadership Enhancement and Development Programme (LEAD-P).
“It is my desire that those programmes which were carefully developed to address the twin challenges of capacity and leadership deficit in the public service today can be sustained and improved upon,” he stated.
Kifasi also urged his successor to take as a matter of priority, the welfare of civil servants so as to motivate them to higher productivity by adjusting and prioritising expenditure for critical needs.