Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says there is need to take bold steps to ensure reforms in the civil service.
He advocated mass housing to address its deficit, especially among civil servants.
Osinbajo stated this at the Presidential Villa when he received a brief on the Federal Civil Service Strategy & Implementation Plan 2021-2025, presented by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folashade Yemi-Esan.
The meeting is a Presidential Level Briefing of the reform process of the Federal Civil Service which has been on since 2017.
Speaking after listening to Dr Yemi-Esan’s presentation, ministers and other participants at the meeting, the Vice President said, “for the first time in a long time, some very serious attention is being paid to all of the various issues in our civil service.”
We need to do something bold and big that will make a difference in order to address some of the issues especially that of accommodation for civil servants…we have a target now of 300,000 houses under our ESP social housing scheme. CBN has allocated N200 billion, we need to make civil servants beneficiaries.
Access to affordable homes is one of the easiest ways to get people out of poverty, Osinbajo said adding that, “A civil servant ought to be able to own a home, and justify to his family the reason why he went for the job”.
“Though the housing scheme is very modest, it is the sort of thing that we can at least do, to begin to take into account, the fact that everybody who worked for the civil service deserves to live in their own home. There must be strategy for giving everybody place to live in,” the VP said.
Fixing the welfare of federal civil servants would be key to addressing challenges associated with productivity and corruption, the VP added.
RN