By Azubuike Jinanwa and Divine Nwankwo (Umuahia)
Abia State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti has formally reopened the newly renovated and retrofitted Nnamdi Azikiwe Secretariat for efficient service delivery by civil servants.
Speaking during the event at Ogurube Layout, Umuahia, Governor Otti said that the renovation of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Secretariat is a prove of his determination to change the face of the State’s civil service.
“This reopening ceremony is in furtherance of our commitment to building a State that serves the needs of the general public in the most efficient way”.
“The renovation of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Secretariat is another pointer to our determination to change the face of the State’s civil service by creating suitable working environment that not only supports optimal productivity but also add to the dignity of close to 1000 personnel”.
He said that in the next few days, the management and staff of 4 different MDAs would relocate to the renovated secretariat while another 4 would also move in for the meantime as goverment is working to find permanent office spaces for them.
The Governor, who recalled that suitable office accommodations have already been provided for staff of several establishments in the civil service, disclosed that plans are in place to commence the external works and give the entire surrounding of the secretariat a new look that befits it.
Governor Otti tasked the workers to show commitment to the civil service given the fact that in the last 18 months, he has catered for the welfare, safety and career progression of the civil servants, assuring that in the New Year, suitable training programmes for different cadres of personnel in the civil service would begin.
“It is expected that we shall begin to see higher output levels in all the public sector establishments in the State. Truancy, lateness, leakage of government documents and other forms of indiscipline and abuses shall not be tolerated”.
“You are required to take your job more seriously going forward; be at your duty post when you should and be conscious of your professional development. I encourage you to guard against being stagnant because the world is a dynamic place”.
He appreciated the Commissioner for Lands and Housing, Mr Chaka Ikenna Chukwumerije and his team from the Ministry who executed the project by direct labour and said that delivering the job has given goverment a peek into the capacity that hitherto laid dormant in the civil service.
“What we are witnessing today could not have been possible if not for the trust this Administration reposed on the technical cadre of the State civil service from where we have deployed teams of engineers, architects, surveyors and other professionals to execute various important public-sector projects.”
“The majesty and ambience of this structure validates the decision to trust our civil servants with projects that would have otherwise gone to independent contractors at humongous sums”.
“We shall continue to trust the technical teams we have in the various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) with new assignments. The reward for a good job as I always say, is more jobs”, Governor Otti stated.
In his address, the Commissioner for Lands and Housing, Mr Chaka Chukwumerije described the reopening of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Secretariat as part of the present administration’s integrated plan to upgrade the entire Secretariat complex to ensure that public buildings are adequately co-located within the same space and in a conducive environment, befitting for its civil servants.
The Commissisoner recalled that the Nnamdi Azikiwe Secretariat, originally constructed in 1993 during the Ibrahim Babangida administration had deteriorated over the years and eventually abandoned by the previous administration following concerns about its structural integrity.
He lauded Governor Otti’s administration for fulfilling its promise to rebuild and modernize Abia’s public service infrastructure, noting that the newly retrofitted Secretariat now boasts of restored water and electricity supply, new furnishings for approximately 150 offices, four newly introduced boardrooms, and a state-of-the-art 240-seater conference hall, adding that it would accommodate close to 1,000 civil servants.
In her remarks on behalf of the Abia workforce, the Head of Service, Dr. Mrs Ngozi Obioma described the commissioning of the retrofitted Secretariat Complex as a demonstration of the present administration’s commitment to rejigging the Abia Civil Service trajectory which was on a “downward spiral” prior to Dr. Otti’s assumption of office.
She lauded Governor Otti for recognizing that decent and conducive accommodation serves as a motivation for qualitative service delivery and commended the Governor’s commitment to transforming the administrative, infrastructural, and social landscape of the state.
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