Maku ties Ministry’s Progress to staff hard work

The Minister of Information, Labaran Maku has disclosed that success in the Ministry depends to a great extent on the character and contributions of Staff.

The Federal Executive Council spokesperson stated this in an interactive session held with staff of the Ministry at the National Press Centre in Abuja recently.

Labaran Maku also expressed appreciations to the Ministry’s work force for commitment to work and for participating in the strenuous activities of the concluded first phase of the National Good Governance Tour, which according to him did not record any ugly incident.

The Minister who described the positive impacts made so far in the Ministry as unquantifiable in monetary terms, attributed the impact to the hard work and commitment of staff.

He further noted that the Ministry is short of funds to carry out the numerous demands on the Ministry as a result of the unimpressive 2013 Budget and assured that monies are being sought through the SURE-P to help the Ministry move in the right direction.

Maku spoke on the Ministry’s determination to ensure that promotion is regular and carried out through the best processes to make sure that officers are promoted when due. “A total of N100 million was expended on staff training in 2012 and the Ministry is giving priority to staff training and development for optimum performance in service delivery”, he explained.

While speaking on the engagement of consultants, the Minister noted that no consultant has been contracted for staff training under his leadership as obtained in the past; saying funds have been channelled to the Ministry’s training institute – the “Nigeria Institute for Public Information (NIPI)”, which has the statutory responsibility to training officers.

The Minister charged Resident Information Officers serving in various Ministries, Departments and Agencies to file reports on daily basis to saturate the social media platform with programmes and activities of Government.

Also speaking at the event, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Folashade Yemi-Esan urged the staff to find meaningful ways of engaging other institutions for partnership, in order to enhance their input in the Ministry. She added that staff should utilize the numerous resources and ideas at their disposal to improve the workings of the Ministry and to reduce the burden on management.