CMD laments increasing capital flight via foreign trainings
The Centre for Management Development (CMD) has lamented the huge financial losses the country is recording as a result of foreign trainings embarked upon by Nigerians.
The CMD disclosed that the Federal Government of Nigeria spends millions of dollars on training and capacity building of her personnel in various foreign countries on a yearly basis.
The Director-General, CMD, Dr. Kabir Kabo Usman, who disclosed this in Abuja, at the weekend, lamented the extent of capital flight as a result of this development, blaming it on what he described as ‘financial indiscipline’ among certain administrators in the government circle who are insensitive to the danger this act poses to economic development, especially, at a time when everyone is calling on the government to revive the nation’s ailing economy.
Usman disclosed that his organisation, which is a parastatal of the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, had been in the business of regulating and benchmarking the activities and operations of all training and capacity-building institutions in Nigeria to ensure their compliance to the acceptable global standards and ethics and to deal with quackery in the industry.
According to him, “in line with our mandate, we regulate and accredit training institutions in Nigeria and the aim of doing this is to ensure that the global standards which we have substantially acquired as a regulator in the industry are domesticated locally to ensure that the country meets up with both vision 20:2020 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as to up skill the competencies of the Nigerian workforce.”
The CMD DG informed that the centre had reviewed its curriculum to conform to the change agenda of the present day federal government.
“This year, the CMD had reviewed its curriculum to incorporate and complement the Federal Government’s initiative on the Treasury Single Account, Zero-based budgeting etc. All these are to ensure that efficiency and transparency are instituted in the system for higher productivity, service delivery and value for money.”
Asked how he intends to achieve these lofty goals considering the fact that many of the government personnel who embark on foreign training tourism do so not necessarily for knowledge acquisition, but for financial benefits, Usman stated that such things would come to an end because “the federal government had shown the will and commitment to stamp out corruption, and the effort of the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation in this regard is very tremendous and commendable. The Head of Service is working vigorously to bring to an end the numerous trips of federal government personnel on the account of foreign trainings.
“In CMD, we have equipped our staff to the extent that we can deliver most of these capacity-building trainings people go for abroad. We have sharpened the skills and competencies of our staff by exposing them to various international trainings. What is left is for us to cascade what we have acquired to the grassroots for higher productivity. In the same vein, in 2015 alone, CMD trained over 2000 personnel from both the public and private sectors on capacity-building programmes”, Usman stressed.
He disclosed that Nigeria could only develop significantly if it explored the various opportunities in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
According to the DG, the CMD lays much emphasis on the use of ICT in its accreditation visits. He stressed that the centre is also working with the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) on the introduction of e-government in Nigeria to curb corruption and enhance the credibility of procurement in government business.
The Director-General called on all Nigerians to support the federal government in her efforts to reposition the country and to take it to the next level of development.
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1 Comments
The only way this can be stop and it should be stop, is by the federal government mandating an end to it. one of the problem is that when this official go for this train, they travel with multiple members of their family and even friends, all the backs of tax payer. it is time we begin to use our local training capacity, which would help them improve their own capacity, retain capital within the country and if we have to use foreign training, that training be done within our border. each foreign training a government official goes on help the foreign economy. They are paying lodging, feeding, transport, material, fees, taxes and various other expenses, all which could be helping our local economy.
We will review and take appropriate action.