As part of its plans to provide a platform for facilitating the sustainable development of the Niger Delta Region, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), has concluded a three-day retreat for members of its , to build their capacity for optimum performance.
Held in Lagos, with the theme: Repositioning Legal Services For Optimal Impact In The Public Sector, the training was tailored towards making adequate adoptive provision of legal services and getting it right on delivery perceptive, by positioning the legal service in doing its work.
In his presentation, the Director of Legal Services, Stephen Ighomuaye, said the essence of the retreat was to train the legal service unit.
While noting that the current management recognises the need for training and retraining for the staff of the directorates to come together and reposition themselves, he noted that the problems of the region will be properly taken care of if legal service is positioned to do its work.
“The importance of training and retreat cannot be over-emphasised in the directorate of legal services of an organisation as big and trivial as NDDC – an interventionist agency set up for the rapid development of the Niger Delta.”
In his keynote address, a legal luminary, Mr. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, encouraged the NDDC and all public sector entities to pay wages that are commensurate and competitive to their counterparts in the private sector, for the purpose of optimal performance.
“From my experience, when people in the public sector are properly encouraged, funded and remunerated, they perform even better than those in the private sector. That’s why I use the example of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which is an agency that is powered by the regular police.”
“But because they have been exposed to training and they have specialised handling of equipment, they become like special people, even different from their regular colleagues in the police stations and the various barracks,” he said.
Adegboruwa also called on the National Assembly to amend the NDDC Establishment Act, noting that the commission’s Act is replete with lacuna and controversies, hence the need for an amendment.
“For instance, we want to know whether appointment into the NDDC board should be restricted to the indigenes of the oil-producing areas or whether the people from non-oil producing areas should also be entitled.
“We want to also ensure that the Act is amended in such a way as to ensure performance, especially in the issue of eliminating hydra-headed monsters of abandoned projects. That is what I mean by ensuring we amend,” he said.
He added that the amendment would help to state clearly the appointment of managing director into the commission’s board, saying that the current law talks about rotation between the oil-producing states.
