The Accidental Public Servant

by El-Rufai, Nasir

  environmental quality and security were not adequately provided by the MFCT. For me, it was

  qualitative indices like whether our grasses and hedges were of the same height on both sides of the

  road and whether the shortest cul-de-sac in Garki 1 was always clean and garbage collected daily

  that indicated that the administration was working. It was quantitative indices like how long it took to

  replace a broken street-light, the time patients spent in our hospitals before seeing a physician, and

  the number of students that made five credits in WASC and NECO examinations that would measure

  our administrative effectiveness. Did our staff regard the residents of the FCT as "customers" that

  they should be responsive to politely, and not with the arrogant indifference seen in most government

  departments? Were we thinking through policies to address observed problems, and seeing through

  implementation? These and similar considerations guided our thought processes throughout.

  We, therefore, designed our FCT public service reform programme around six activities, with some

  pursued as "quick wins" to send the right signals, and others medium and longer-term in orientation.

  The activities were: planning, budget and procurement reforms; structural reorganization of MFCT

  and agencies; modernization of internal administrative processes, waste reduction and e-government

  solutions; performance measurement, monitoring and evaluation; privatization of services and

  promoting public private partnerships wherever possible, and pension reforms, training and re-

  professionalization strategies. The goals of all these were to improve service delivery and make the

  FCT run as a model city and territory in Nigeria.

  Quick Wins ahead of Painful Reforms

  We recognized that the reform programme will not have credibility until visible and sustained

  improvements in service delivery and the "look and feel' of the city are demonstrated within the

  shortest possible timeframe. We therefore focused our first six to nine months on six groups of

  decisions and actions to send the message that there were new people in town, and they care about

  delivering results quickly.

  Beggars had become a huge nuisance in Abuja and even though the AEPB Act 1996 made begging and

  street hawking criminal offences in the territory, they had continued unabated and become an industry

  of sorts. At traffic lights and junctions, beggars and newspaper vendors struggled for space to attract

  the attention of motorists. We studied several reports of previous 'beggar deportations' and

  rehabilitation. We then made public our intentions, [104] and then designed a destitution management

  programme with three components - rehabilitation, empowerment and enforcement. We gave all the

  beggars the opportunity to attend the vocational training school in Bwari free of charge, with free

  feeding and lodging for the duration of the training, and paid them a monthly stipend. On completion

  of training in various trades, the FCTA gave the graduates tools and equipment, and some seed capital

  to start their small businesses. The programme trained hundreds this way. Those that rejected our

  offer were arrested and fined until they stopped showing up to beg. The others were repatriated to

  their states of choice if neither option was acceptable to them. Those affected by leprosy had a

  special settlement built for them at Yangoji in Kwali Area Council, complete with school, clinic[105]

  and other essential facilities. Within nine months, there were no beggars on Abuja streets.

  The quick greening of the city to take advantage of the rainy season was another quick win. We

  invited construction companies that were beneficiaries of FCT's procurement contracts and other

  corporate organizations, and requested them to help with city greening and in developing our parks

  and recreational facilities as part of their corporate social responsibility. We made it clear that this

  was all we required from them - no kickbacks, no free tickets to Europe and so on. Many

  enthusiastically accepted and we developed and put into use sixteen neighbourhood, district and city

  parks within the first nine months. Some of the recovered areas were also restored as parks. Among

  those was Accra Street, where Obasanjo flagged off the widely-publicised demolition exercise on

  30th August 2003, [106] and which became Ukpabi Asika Memorial Park. We intensified efforts to

  make Abuja cleaner and greener. [107] We launched a programme to plant one million trees in Abuja

  within four years, and published a tender to privatize garbage collections. We also invited tenders for

  the private maintenance of our streetlights to improve response time in changing expired lamps and so

  on. We completed all these processes within the first nine months as we were undertaking internal

  structural and administrative changes within the Ministry of FCT and its agencies.

  We also paid off a large number of contractors and suppliers who were owed relatively small sums

  of money by the MFCT, as part of our “quick wins” programme. On assumption of office, I was

  briefed into believing that the MFCT had total liabilities in excess of N150 billion. On digging further

  and requesting for an aging analysis of the debts, I found that a substantial percentage of the debts

  were small-contractor claims of less than N10 million for work done or goods supplied. These

  contractors happened to constitute most of the under-capitalized, briefcase carrying, overnight

  contractors that take up a lot of executive time bearing notes from ministers, senators and governors,

  requesting payments for what had been due. I thought it made sense to just clear the backlog and get

  everyone to focus on bigger challenges. We, therefore, set up a committee on outstanding liabilities

  headed by Mr Sylva Ameh, Director Finance & Accounts, which submitted a report in October 2003.

  We tasked another committee headed by Yusuf Tsaiyabu, Head of Internal Audit, with making the

  payments, but there was one hurdle - there was no money voted for that purpose in the 2003 budget

  that I inherited.120 We reviewed the spending priorities, cut down on purchases of tea and coffee,

  domestic and international travel, and so on. We then approached the national assembly to approve

  the virement - transfer of funds from one budget head to another. We effected payments in two batches

  in the total sum of N1.8 billion, in addition to some N700 million in normal liability payments by 31st

  December 2003, and succeeded in getting hundreds of companies off our backs.

  I have gone into these details to demonstrate the link between sequencing the implementation of

  public service reforms, the organizational context and the outcomes. Pursuing public service reform

  as a standalone activity without visible improvements in other areas will be interpreted as simply

  laying off large numbers of people, and no more.

  With regard to the core reforms in the MFCT, we first reviewed the nominal roll from the HR

  departments and compared them with the payroll of the Finance & Accounts Department. We ordered

  that a pay parade be undertaken for the months of August to October 2003 requiring every employee

  to collect his pay in person with staff ID card and letter of first employment. This was then followed

  by cheque-only payments to designated bank accounts, and then biometrics - about 3,000 staff failed

  to show up. We saved about N756 million in 2004 from these steps taken in 2003. For instance, the />
  ministry's nominal roll showed 13,855 staff, but only 11,722 cheques were cashed. [108] Other

  parastatals and agencies accounted for the balance. By the time we concluded the restructuring and

  reforms within the FCT Administration, our nominal and pay rolls were capped at about 18,000

  employees. We then undertook detailed process reviews, looking at our budget and spending

  priorities, and reversed the structure in favour of capital spending. [109]

  The Ministry of the FCT was then dissolved by Executive Order and about 1,500 staff of the Federal

  Civil Service were given the option to convert to the FCT Public Service or return to the office of the

  Head of Civil Service for posting. Most of them chose to leave the FCT Administration. We then

  restructured the entire FCT Administration and right-sized the workforce, disengaging redundant staff

  and those engaged in corruption, land racketeering and declining performance.

  Intensive training and pay reform followed, enabling our teachers to be better paid than any in the

  Federal Government. We collaborated with computer vendors to introduce government-assisted

  purchase of computers and motorcycles for FCT staff, with flexible payment terms. On the whole, our

  pilot was deemed successful and similar templates were followed by the other pilot MDAs - the State

  House, the Federal Ministries of Finance and Information, National Planning Commission and the

  Federal Inland Revenue Service.

  Creating the Public Service Reform Team

  In the course of implementation of reforms in the pilot MDAs, we learnt a few lessons. Obvious ones

  included the resistance to change and issues of trust in the reformers. The public servants considered

  us hostile outsiders intent on messing up their lives, work and careers. Only continuous interactions

  and evidence of good faith can change that perception. The rigid civil service rules and systems did

  not help matters, and we realized the need to rewrite and update the rules for the twenty-first century.

  Issues of federal character, regional and religious balance in staff disposition constrained decision-

  making sometimes, amidst shortage of skills and inadequate resources within the public service.

  These all needed to be taken into account when mainstreaming the reform processes to cover the

  entire public service.

  On 8th August 2005, I submitted a fourteen-page memorandum[110] to the President reporting the

  status of the reforms in the FCT and other pilot MDAs, and recommending changes in the

  implementation arrangements for the public service reforms. The proposal to change the reporting

  relationship such that the Bureau of Public Service Reform reported to the Economic Team through

  me was approved. Thereafter, the head of the civil service, in a September 27, 2005 letter to the

  president, reluctantly gave his status report. This was transmitted to me and the Secretary to the

  Government a week later. By then I had already taken charge of supervising the Bureau of Public

  Service Reform, and instituted the reform team.

  Like most citizens, I considered myself a victim of the corruption and inefficiency of the public

  service. I, therefore, approached the PSRT assignment with single-minded focus to effect reforms in

  the service. In this role, I received the support and assistance of many wonderful and capable people.

  Segun Peters of the World Bank combined passion for Nigeria, uncommon dedication and intellect

  that enabled him break down complicated policies into measurable, implementable strategies. Dr.

  Goke Adegoroye, [111] an academic scientist turned civil servant, brought commitment, integrity and

  competence, in addition to emotional intelligence, in navigating the minefields and traps of the civil

  service establishment, represented by Yayale Ahmed, the intuitively obstructive head of the civil

  service. It is my humble opinion that the imperative to reform the public service for effectiveness is

  still very much on the table. I will therefore go into some details about what we did, lessons learnt,

  and what is left to be done.

  In a State of Denial

  One major problem with public service reform is the belief held by most public servants that they are

  not to blame for the sorry state of affairs. The bulk of the public servants continue to be in denial and

  have refused to take responsibility for their ineffectiveness, 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 Programme 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 methods, skills and technology. The public service has been short-term in its

  vision, self-centred in policy formulation and corrupt in programme implementation. Instead, its

  leadership (the permanent secretaries and successive heads of civil service) have consistently

  focused on taking care of themselves and their narrow interests to the detriment of the nation, the

  public service and the governance system which sustains it.

  The public service failed to reform itself between 2001 and 2005 when two successive heads of the

  civil service were tasked to do so by President Obasanjo. 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. I, as an ‘outsider,’ was needed to administer the required

  medicine. But even that needed the cooperation of the patient, which was not forthcoming.

  Public Service Reforms in Summary

  It was incontestable 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 had 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 was made in

  that regard.

  The need to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the public service had been

  recognized from pre-independence days, and over time there were several attempts at reform. 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 res
pect to employment, promotion and discipline of the junior cadres to ministries with

  disastrous consequences which needed dealing with by 2005.

  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 submitted 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:

  Restructuring of Pilot Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs): The PSRT produced two

  generic guidelines approved by cabinet in March 2006 for the reform and restructuring of MDAs and

  parastatals. Initially five 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 four and eight departments and two to four divisions per department. These were approved

  by the cabinet on May 16th, 2007 and became applicable to all government departments immediately.

  Cleaning up of Civil Service and Parastatals Nominal Rolls: A committee of the reform team,

  headed by Steve Oronsaye,[112] 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 human

  resource management functions to MDAs in 1988, and the failures of the FCSC and OHCSF to

  discharge their central management 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 from the service. An initial batch of 36,843 officers were put through pre-retirement