BY GORDI UDEAJAH
Abia state governor Dr Alex Otti has tasked members of the state enlarged Executive Council during their 2025 two day retreat to develop robust governance execution template stating that year 2025 would be a crucial one for the state.
He also charged them to approach their assignments with a sense of urgency stressing that 2025 is the year ” we are required to exceed whatever we achieved in the past”.
While declaring the retreat which had the theme “Sustaining Momentum: Accelerating Execution” open, the governor in his opening speech titled. “Eyes On The Ball”, said that his administration is not going to be judged by the mediocre standards of the past administration because his was elected to raise the bar and raise it very very high.
The two-day retreat which was organized by the State Government for members of the enlarged Abia State Executive Council at the International Conference Centre, Umuahia, was designed as a leadership exposition, interactive session, and agenda-setting forum aimed at identifying operational bottlenecks and proffering solutions to ensure effective governance in the State.
Otti who reiterated his administration’s commitment to raising governance standards far beyond those of past administrations and emphasized that every sector of Abia’s economic and social service ecosystem is crucial to the State’s development, stressed the need for the participants to develop a robust and sustainable execution template that will drive the attainment of Abia State’s strategic governance targets for the current fiscal year.
“What we need to do in the course of this retreat is to see where and how our approach to the execution has deviated from the trajectory we seek to travel.
“The agenda for us all in this exercise shall be to collectively develop a robust execution template that will drive the attainment of our strategic governance target for the current fiscal year and this retreat has been set up to underline how we shall run as a government in the new year”.
Former Head of Service of the Federation, Mr. Stephen Oronsaye in his presentation titled, “Enhancing Public Service Through Efficiency, Accountability, Transparency, and Impactful Reforms, stressed the need for staff auditing, identifying the competence gap, determining the size of the workforce needed, and embarking on training and retraining to have impactful reforms.
He identified some challenges in the public service including lack of capacity, accountability, and transparency, recommending capacity building, conducive work environment, and contract appointments to fill the gaps in the service
According to him , there should be a collaboration between the Civil Service Commission and the Office of the Head of Service, holding that the friction between the public and civil servants could be minimized by acknowledging that they are working to achieve a goal.
The Secretary to the State Government, Professor. Kenneth Kalu, had said that the governor Otti administration has gathered momentum in several areas of infrastructural development, health, education, and other sectors describing the retreat as one designed to sustain the momentum in line with the theme
” The retreat is an opportunity for the participants to reflect and map out strategies to move towards achieving the goals of the present administration hence we should not be fully satisfied at the level we presently find ourselves.
