Anambra to train workforce – Head of Service

Anambra Government has assured its civil servants of massive training and retraining this year to enhance their capacity for improved productivity.
The Head of Service, Harry Udu, gave the assurance in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Friday in Awka.
Udu, who commended workers in the state for having resumed fully after the Christmas and New Year break, said they must redouble their efforts.
He said that plans and programmes for the manpower capacity training of the workers had been built into this years’ budget and would be implemented fully when the budget is passed.
Udu said there was generational gap in state public service due to long period of non-recruitment and number of experienced hands that had left service and noted the need to bridge it through training.
He said: “We are starting the year with increased vigour, increased education, targeting Internally Generated Revenue to ensure our budget is powered optimally; we owe our employers no less after all they have done to make us happy.
“Our capacity building programme has been mainstreamed into the budget; we are looking forward to the passing of the budget so that we can hit the ground running.
“There cannot be an upper limit to capacity building; it is a continuous affair, particularly as we have a lot of young people in the service.
“They will need a lot of training and retraining to be able to cope with the challenges of the environment.’’
Udu said that as a result of policies on embargo, we are not recruiting as and when due, now we have a top-heavy workforce many of whom are retiring soon.
He said: “There is need to prepare the young ones to take over and bridge the generational gap.
“Since 2013, government has been doing strategic recruitment in such a way that we won’t have such gap again.
“We are going to focus on both the population and quality of our workers this year, there will be a lot of training and mentoring.
“You will see more intelligent officers heading departments and agencies, emphasis will be more on competence than seniority this time.’’
He added that there was the need to beef up the manpower in the teaching aspect of the service to make up for the number of experienced teachers who have exited service.
The HoS said that audit was going on to monitor resumption of workers in the state and warned that any worker who had yet to resume would face the rule of service as it would be applied fully.