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Lagos has demonstrated that govt can work, says governor

By Wole Oyebade
21 May 2015   |   3:21 am
Governor Babatunde Fashola has given kudos to the State Civil Servants and his party for the achievements now credited to his eight-year administration.
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Fashola

Governor Babatunde Fashola has given kudos to the State Civil Servants and his party for the achievements now credited to his eight-year administration.

Fashola said collectively, they were able to demonstrate that government could actually work if properly planned and focused.

The governor, who spoke at a commendation service in his honour, said the success story of Lagos today, was a product of teamwork, and he should not be singled out for recognition.

Fashola said that he, as the team leader, was expected to take responsibility for everything that the team did well or did not do well.

He added that the accolades being poured on his government was indeed an honour for the All Progressives Congress (APC), starting from when it was the Action Congress (AC) to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), because it provided the platform under which I served the State.

According to him, it is indeed an honour to my party, the APC, because we worked with the manifesto of the party, which has been infused into the rules and procedures of the public service. “If anything has delighted me today, it is the fact that the APC, as a party, has demonstrated in this part of the world that government can work, can lead and can also transform lives,” he said.

Courtesy of their reform programmes, Fashola observed, the people who turned their backs on the public service some 30 years ago were now applying to come back.

He said further that there was nothing wrong in civil service bureaucracy, which he described as a body of rules and processes.

“With over 100,000 employees, the Lagos State Public Service would have been a dysfunctional one without strict observance of procedural rules,” he said.

While expressing delight that the State has become a reference point for other States in the country and even countries in Africa, the governor noted that the challenge was upon the Lagos State Public Service to raise the stakes always, adding that, how close the Lagos State Public Service allows competitors to catch up, was a matter of her own choice.

Responding to the issue of staff housing raised by one of the key speakers, Prof. Yomi Fawehinmi, earlier in the programme, the governor gave assurance that the state had just commissioned 40 flats at the CHOIS estate in Abijo, just as another 400 bungalows are ready in Agbowa and would be handed over to the office of the Head of Service for allocation to civil servants.

He also informed that work was almost completed on the LSDPC quarters in Alausa, which consists of one, two and three bedrooms flat of four blocks and 48 apartments that belongs to civil servants

Fashola identified role model and mentorship as an essential ingredient in successful public service. He explained that everyone should understand that in politics, as is the case in all walks of life, there is always a day-one.

In his own case, it was when he was appointed the Chief of Staff and his choosing the then Permanent Secretary in the Governor’s Office, Sunny Akinsanya Ajose, as his mentor was his day-one.

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