President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed Dr. Mustapha Raji as the Director-General of the National Productivity Centre (NPC).
While the appointment takes effect from May 19, 2023, the second term of the current Director-General of the Centre, Dr. Kashim Akor, will end on May 18, 2023.
Conveying the letter of appointment, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, wished the new helmsman the best of luck, saying the Centre made giant strides under the leadership of the current Director General, Akor.
Raji, a productivity expert of three decades, is a director and current head of the Procurement Department of the Centre.
The Guardian gathered that Akor would be remembered for repositioning the Centre by introducing innovations and establishing links and contacts for the benefit of the Centre.
In his reaction to the announcement of Raji as the new Director General, Akor described Raji as a close ally that has been a part of the positive evolvement of the Centre.
He said: “In terms of my expectations from the incoming DG, I have laid a solid foundation for the Centre in the last eight years. I have built the Centre to prominence where the staff can be proud of where they work.
There was no staff vehicle for staff when I came on board. Now they have and I provided official vehicles for all the directors of the Centre. I have just procured two brand new vehicles for the incoming DG for him to take off without any hitch. Having provided the entire wherewithal to make him succeed, I expect him to improve on what I have done.
“The incoming DG is a close ally of mine who has been very close to me even before I became the DG. He knows the vision. He was a part of the team that developed the vision. I wish him well and I have a very unshakeable confidence that he will succeed.”
Akor highlighted that his administration put in place a five-year strategic plan to drive new thinking in the Centre.
“I put in place a five-year strategic plan to reshape our thoughts and restructure the Centre in a way that we can accomplish our mission effectively. Based on the strategic plan, we redesign our programmes and invented new ones with the intention and objectives of the government. The strategic plan was in line with the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and the new development plan.
“We intensified our capacity-building programmes such as training both locally and internationally. I was able to train 45 staff of the Centre in Japan in collaboration with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) at no cost to Nigeria. The staff has now been certified Productivity Consultants that are now assisting the public and the private sector players to grow their productivity,” he said.
According to him, he has added eight new state offices to the existing 11 that have been in place since 1987 when the Centre was established.
Akor added: “We had only 11 state offices since the inception of the Centre in 1987. But in the last eight years, I have established additional eight state offices to popularise productivity at the grassroots level. I also established state productivity committees to enlist the support of critical stakeholders in the various sectors of the economy at the state level.”
Director General added that the productivity summit, which he introduced as a platform for stakeholders in the productivity sub-sector to come together under one roof to brainstorm on how to continue to improve productivity in Nigeria, adding that the summit has come up with recommendations that if implemented by the government, will boost national productivity.
