The Director-General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), Dr. Joe Abah, has urged the federal government to strengthen the civil service if donor intervention is to deliver the desired change promised Nigerians by the current administration.

Dr. Joe Abah stated this at a round-table discussion with a delegation from the Department of International Development-Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (DFID-PERL), recently in Abuja.

The D-G further said that the people invited were deliberately chosen so that they can inform their principals appropriately, noting the principal area that the government will need support and to know to what extent such support can be provided.

Dr. Abah advised DFID-PERL to prioritize its programme so that interventions are not spread too thin such that little or no impact is made which was the case of DFID-PERL, its predecessors.

Earlier, leader of the delegation (DFID-PERL) and Governance Adviser, Wilf Mwamba stated that the aim of the support is to see how Nigeria can use its resources to eradicate poverty, pointing out that it will please DFID-PERL to know that Nigeria succeeded because of its support and not because DFID-PERL was solely responsible for it.

He also said that DFID-PERL is a 5-years programme aimed at Public Sector Accountability, Governance Reform and designed to input what will help Nigeria improve its institutions and invariably make a difference in the lives of ordinary Nigerians.

He mentioned areas of intervention to include: Government organization core business, citizens’ engagement, technical assistance, strengthen mechanism on accountability, and linkages on tiers of government among others. Some of the challenges anticipated that could impede the programmes are: lack of communication strategy, enabling laws, central coordinating bodies with particular reference to revenue and the fear of hijack by political class.