EndSARS: Lagos reveals 20 parastatals’ assets stolen, destroyed

• Records Surge In Human Capacity Development Amid COVID-19 

Lagos State government has revealed that following the unfortunate EndSARS protest and destruction of public and private property, the state suffered colossus damage to critical public property with 20 parastatals’ assets, either stolen or destroyed.
 
Special Adviser to the Governor, Parastatals Monitoring Office (PMO), Afolabi Ayantayo, said the office carried out on-the- spot assessment of destroyed and stolen assets of the state’s parastatals to determine the level of damage. 
 
“The report has been forwarded to the governor. It is pertinent to mention that 20 parastatals were affected in varying degrees,” Ayantayo said.

In a related development, Lagos State Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Mrs. Ajibola Ponle, said the public service witnessed impressive capacity development despite the restrictions on physically gathering, following the outbreak of COVID-19 last year.

She said over 73,448 public servants were trained in 2020, as against an average of 3,000 trained yearly. She disclosed that the ministry leveraged on online virtual platforms to embark on training programmes for the state employees.

She said: “A total of 3101 officers were trained in 2020 across 98 ministries, department, agencies and parastatals under the virtual training initiative, comprising of 52 Grade Level 17 officers, 272 GL 16, 1023 GL 15, 901 GL 14, 901 GL 14 and 851 GL 13.”

The commissioner also said the ministry had begun the review of Public Service Rules (PSR), to ensure that conditions of service were at par with global standards. She said 186 officers were granted admission for various courses at the Federal Training Centre within the period under review.

She also added that Key Performance Indicator, KPI was introduced to the civil service under the present administration in the State, informing that 215 Officers across 20 MDAs have so far been trained successfully on the use of the KPI Framework from when the first phase of the KPI framework Workshop began in February with 6 MDAs up till the second phase which commenced on 12th April with 14 MDAs.

As part of additional innovations introduced to capacity development of public servants in the State, Ponle stated that the present administration introduced “EXCO SHARES” initiative as a platform where Executive Council members share their knowledge and expertise with public servants on diverse issues and topics of interest. 

According to her, the Exco members that had already engaged the State’s workforce on the Exco Shares platform are: Mr Rabiu Olowu – Commissioner for Finance (IKIGAI – A reason for being), Mrs. Ajibola Ponle – Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, (Universal Cycles of Change), Mrs. Folashade Adefisayo – Commissioner for Education (Ladder of Inference), Mr. Tunbosun Alake – Special Adviser, Innovation (Values & National Development) and Mrs. Bolaji Dada Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, WAPA (Lessons from Ants).

“We also introduced Executive training, the Training was organized for MDs, GMs, DGs and ES of the State Parastatals and Agencies. It was a 10-day programme with focus on concept of leadership and strategic communication,” the Commissioner averred. 

On the Structured Training Programme, STP, Ponle also reported that 3,755 (Three Thousand Seven Hundred and Fifty-Five) Public Servants in 2020 participated in the STP, while in 2021 the STP was organised in collaboration with Public Service Staff Development Centre for 5,238 (Five Thousand Two Hundred and Thirty-Eight) eligible Officers.

Speaking on the relationship between the state government and the various unions in the State, the Commissioner said that the Ministry few days ago, organised a training workshop for labour leaders on “Strengthening Trade, Union Leadership, Mitigating the movement’s succession challenges and Fostering Sustainable Industrial Harmony for a More Prosperous Lagos State” 

“In fulfilment of the pledge made during the Y2021 May Day Celebrations of workers, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu last Friday presented official vehicles to the NLC and TUC chairmen to assist them in running the unions.”

“The PMO, in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice through the Law Reform Commission Office embarked on the review of enabling laws of the Parastatals that are either obsolete or hindering their operational guidelines.
 
“A total number of 54 of such enabling laws have been forwarded to the Law Reform Commission for review. Hopefully, when the exercise is completed affected agencies would have better enabling laws that would enhance their operations and deliver their services effectively,” he said.
 
He added in the next few months, monitoring and evaluation would be intensified to ensure that the parastatals keep to their key performance indicators (KPIs) for achievement of their set goals.
 
According to him, reports generated from these would be forwarded to the governor to keep him abreast of the situations at the parastatals and government owned companies.
 
“We also want to intensify our efforts at getting entrepreneurs to establish business relationship with our parastatals and government owned companies. This will promote expertise, goal driven activities, effective delivery of services to the people and achieving the 21st Century Economy of this administration.
 
“We will intensify efforts to ensure that all obsolete laws of the parastatals and government owned companies under review are completed,” he stated.

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