By Bridget Tikyaa
Benue State Public Service Institute says it is well equipped to upscale the knowledge of civil servants to discharge their duties deploying modern tools and skills to enhance government efficiency.
The institute is also planning to hold a national conference on homeland security to articulate new strategies to confront the security challenges of the state.
Dr. Mark Nyitse, the Director Research and Publication of the institute, said this in an interview in Makurdi.
He explained that training and retraining of the state civil servants will bridge existing capacity gap and ensure efficient delivery of government policies and programmes.
“Governor Hyacinth Alia believes that if civil servants are well trained, all his policies and programmes will be executed properly,” he said, and added that the training will be based on the needs of the civil service.
“The first thing that the institute did was to assemble all the staff of the Government House. They came here for training and they received intensive training on the do’s and don’t of their jobs. The Governor wanted to know if the people that are working with him know exactly what he wants to do.
“When he appointed 13 permanent secretaries, quite a number of them were new and have not done the job of a permanent secretary, so they also came for a training to know the do’s and don’t of their particular offices.”
He also said that the institute had trained all the newly elected 23 Local Government chairmen before they assumed duty on various aspects of their responsibilities.
Dr Nyitse said, apart from that, the institute also conducts promotion examinations for civil servants, and also conduct pre-retirment training for workers existing the service to prepare them for life after retirement.
“We have programmes that will help in developing the capacity of workers in Benue state and even neighbouring states like, Nansrawa, Taraba, Kogi and even FCT. They will get continuous training and research will be conducted to know what they need,” the director added.
On the national conference on security, he said that experts will provide inputs on how to effectively stop the menace of insecurity in the state.
“We are organising a national conference on homeland security. His Excellency is very particular about security, he keeps talking about security and he doesn’t sleep over it.”
“The conference is called a conference on Home Land Security, so many topics will be discussed by qualified people who are in the security industry. We are only going to provide a platform for people to come. It is a conference that is open for everybody to come and be a part of.
“The Director general is always up and down thinking of what we are going to do, so that Benue state will be safe. It will bring people who are experts in the aspect of security and the social media will be used to pass this to the people. I want to assure you that if there is security in Benue state there will be security in Abuja, and Nigeria as a whole.
“We are doing everything possible, we are not security experts but as a research institute, we felt that one of the major problems of Benue state is the issue of security. By the special grace of God, by March 26 to 28, thinkers will be coming here to do the thinking on the area of security in a round table where experts will come and present papers that will help us.
He also said that the institute, in partnership with the Federal Road Safety Corps, will train drivers “to use the roads well and effectively”.
“If you train people and keep them busy, quite a number of people will not engage in social media banters. We want to use it as a center that will train people digitally so that our youths will have something to do in the state,” Dr Nyitse said.
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