Officials of the Nigerian Government and Republic of The Gambia have met in Abuja to share experiences of Public Service Reforms implementation among the two brotherly African Countries. The delegation from the Gambia on familiarisation visit to the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) was led by a Permanent Secretary, Personnel Management Office, Office of the President, Republic of The Gambia, Alhaji Dawdah Fadera.

While welcoming the delegation to the Bureau, the Director –General of BPSR, Dr Joe Abah said the aim of the reforms of the Public Service in Nigeria was to bring about tangible improvement in the services enjoyed by members of the public.
In his presentation, “Reforming Public Services in Nigeria”, the DG x-rayed the successes and key challenges of the reforms of Public Service in Nigeria since inception of the Bureau in 2004 and concluded that a lot had been achieved as service delivery at some of the Ministries, Agencies and Parastatals have been adjudged to have met international best practices. He listed the agencies to include, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON), amongst others.
Speaking earlier, the leader of the delegation, Alhaji Dawdah Fadera explained that his country had embarked on reforms of the Public Service in 2009 due to increasing demands from the public for improved basic services delivery, adding that those reforms were tailored at responding to the concerns of their people.
He enumerated some of the key challenges faced in reforming the Gambian Public Service which are similar to ones earlier mentioned in the course of various presentations such as ghost workers syndrome, manpower budget, secret recruitment or illegal recruitment and when ghost workers are identified and weeded out from payroll, recovering of monies paid to them become a huge problem.
Alhaji Fadera eulogised the historical relationships between the peoples of Gambia and Nigeria saying, “Our peoples are the same by history, and there is no better country we could have turned to in the course of improving the reforming of the Public Service in our country”.
Other presentations by other Directors include, History of BPSR, delivered by Mr Yamusa Bin, Reforming Agencies and Parastatals in Nigeria by Mr S. Inyang Anyang, National Strategy for Public Service Reforms (NSPSR) by Ms. Felicia Otti, Using Public Perception to Shape Reforms by Mr Dasuki Arabi, Challenges of the BPSR by Mr Alloysious Tsado and Dr Bakari Wadinga and Communicating Reforms by Mr. Festus Oyaide.