The on-going reforms in the public service are aimed at reducing costs of governance as well as boost efficiency in the system, the Director General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), Dr. Joe Abah has said.

He stated that the reforms, which cuts across government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) include the recent ban on first class travels for civil servants, travelling abroad for oversea trainings, use of office accommodation of MDAs instead of hiring hotels for events, co-ordinating the purchase of stationaries for MDAs, reduction in the cost of entertainments, reducing the cost of advertorials in Newspapers as well as introducing performance agreement platforms in accessing officers for promotion in addition to written tests among others.

Dr Abah, who disclosed this in Abuja recently at a lunchtime reforms seminar series on ‘Efficiency in Conduct of Government Business’ jointly organized by the BPSR in collaboration with the Efficiency Unit, Federal Ministry of Finance, explained that the seminar was hinged on how government can achieve greater efficiency in the way that its businesses are managed.

His explanation: “This government has now banned First Class travels, we are looking at ways of reducing the cost of travels, we are looking at ways of bringing trainers back here to Nigeria rather than having a group of people travelling abroad and spend foreign currency, some of the issues also includes that of maximizing accommodation, we are looking at coordinating the purchase of stationaries for MDAs, we are looking at reducing the cost of advertorials in Newspapers.”

Abah noted that despite the new measures, government is not also unmindful of the workers welfare, adding, “welfare is always important to people. The issue is that unless we can cut the cost of unnecessary expenditures, it will be difficult to provide for workers’ welfare. So, the more we can make governance efficient, the more resources there would be to look after workers.”

Abah argued that government cannot on one hand, be inefficient and at the same time have sufficient resources to improve worker’s welfare.

“Boosting the welfare of workers comes out from the same pot and the pot is not elastic and so, the more we can cut away waste, reduce wasteful expenditures, reduce corruption in the system, the more there will be for capital projects, the more we can make working environment more conducive,” he said.