The Director-General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Dr. Joe Abah has advised the Directorate for International Development-Learning, Evidencing And Advocacy Pillars (DFID-LEAP) to be wary of the mistakes made by DFID-FEPAR (Federal Public Administration on Reforms) its predecessor by not recognizing  BPSR which by Federal Government directive is the official clearing house of all interventions on reforms.

While receiving the delegation of DFID- LEAP on Wednesday, 22nd June, 2016 in Abuja, Dr. Abah noted that DFID-FEPAR further derailed by not working with the National Strategy on Public Service Reforms (NSPSR) document as it claimed it had not been approved by government failing to realise that aspects of the Strategy had been in operation since 2009.
Dr. Abah further explained that the NSPSR is the coordinating document on reforms and that it has been submitted to the Ministry Of Budget And National Planning to update in line with the present government’s change agenda.
Furthermore, the Director-General noted that the idea that DFID-LEAP will be working with more Civil Society Organisations and Stakeholders is a welcome development and in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s pronouncement that Nigeria will soon join countries operating open government partnership.
The Director- General while agreeing to forward to DFID-LEAP all on-going work on reforms, asked for support in terms of capacity building for individuals and institutions to strengthen the capacity to solve problems and bring about better service delivery. He also asked for technical support for National Monitoring and Evaluation Framework and for Performance Management Systems (PMS); a management tool developed by the Bureau, the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation and the Federal Civil Service Commission, to get it to conclusion before submitting to the Federal Executive Council for approval.
Earlier, the leader of the delegation, Governance Adviser, Wilf Mwamba said the focus of DFID-LEAP will be on partnership to engage, reform and learn, adding that it will be premised on the three principles of accountability, capacity and responsiveness.
According to him, DFID-LEAP will engage more with the citizens among whom will include: the Legislators, the Media and the Civil Society Ogranisations (CSOs), stressing that this will enable it to understand the key things and context well and prioritise on which ones to support the government with.
The Governance Adviser, requested that BPSR do a mandate and CSOs mapping as well as look for catalytic things that will bring about linkages as linkages ensures that government is effective in service delivery. He further noted that attention will be paid to what was missed in previous intervention as well as identify areas where blockages are preventing service delivery.
It will be recalled that DFID-LEAP are the old inheritors of DFID-FEPAR whose 5 years activities (2011-2015) ended on 26th April, 2016.