Background

By 2009, following the abuse of the Decree 49 of 1988, the federal civil service had a generation of officers who had been Permanent Secretaries and Directors for between 10 and 12 years and were not due for retirement for at least another 5 years; making many directorate-level officers to have stagnated as deputy directors or assistant directors. There was a pervading loss of morale, growing frustration and growing apprehension among a large number of officers overdue for promotion and who felt that some of their superior officers lacked the requisite qualification and capacity to supervise them.

Past Reform and Achievements

Government enacted a new tenure policy for permanent secretaries and directors on 1 January 2010. The new policy allowed permanent secretaries to hold office for a term of four years, renewable for only a further term of four years, subject to satisfactory performance. Directors are to compulsorily retire upon serving eight years on post. Permanent secretaries and directors were retired that had by the enactment date spent eight years in their posts.

The tenure policy created vacancies, and ensured the promotion of qualified and deserving officers as at when due; raising morale within the service.

Challenges and Next Steps

Clear criteria for assessing the performance of permanent secretaries, directors-general, and executive secretaries at the end of the first four-year term of office needs to be established to ensure only capable individuals hold such offices. Future restructuring needs to followed a thought-out plan to prevent the loss of talent such as in the previous reform. Office buildings need to be made accessible to the physically challenged officers in the workforce to effectively tap their talents. Irregular transfer of officers from state civil services into the federal civil service should be regulated and monitored, to ensure accordance with the stipulation of the paragraph 5(iv) of the ‘Guidelines for Appointment, Promotion and Discipline’ that ‘serving officers accepted on transfer into the federal civil service from state governments and other government agencies shall be placed on the post they would have attained by normal promotion, as provided in the schemes of their cadre, if they had joined the federal civil service in the first instance.” Capacity-building for the workforce should be prioritised with on-the-job training, so that promoted officers have the capacity to fill their new offices.