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| EKITI STATE PUBLIC SERVICE LECTURE | |
MEDIOCRITY AND INEFFICIENCY IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE: THE WAY OUT-BY ADEDARA J. OMIYALEBeing a Talk delivered as the Guest Speaker at the Quarterly Ekiti State Public Service Forum holden at the Ekiti State Cultural Centre Ado Ekiti on Thursday 11th January 2007 Preamble I have had to change the structure of this topic from the original handed over to me by the organizers of this forum, in the sense that I have chosen to exclude the word “State” so that instead of “State Public Service” what you now have is simply “Public Service”, unqualified. The reason is because the topic can best be treated in general application not only to all public services in Nigeria but, in some sense, to the entire world of the Public Service, where some form of inefficiency has been traced to the very nature of the system, compared with the private sector. There has been increasing concern all over the place to make the processes in the public sector more efficient and productive. Hence all the recent government policy thrusts about Public-Private sector partnerships in so many areas previously dominated by government. So, we are very, very right to choose to deal with this topic at this forum and at this time. I can only hope that at the end of our discussion, the way out may show itself as we beam our searchlight over the several angles that we will be looking at in dealing with the subject. Introduction02. I believe that we cannot properly handle this subject in isolation of the ecology of the Nigeria Public Administration. Ecology refers to the peculiar economic and socio-political environment based on the core values of the society and “the turn of events that may be generated by such values over time”. The question had once been put to me as to whether or not Nigeria has any specific core values. Of course, we do have; otherwise we would have had no ethics at all. Parts of our core values are:a. The cherishing of respect for elders and senior, for stable Social order;b. Upholding honesty and integrity as desirable traits in people;c. Emphasis on filial relationships and cooperation as a kind of social insurance;d. Strong tribal/ethnic loyalty at the expense of national patriotism;e. Looking up to politics as a quick means of amassing wealth and fame;f. Strong emotional attachment to religion. All of these directly or indirectly shape our attitude to work. That is why T.A Akinyele has drawn attention to Professor Eric J. Hanson’s opinion that when handling public affairs, it is necessary to have an understanding of: “The changing institutional structure of the economy, a vision of the kind of society which is evolving and a flexibility of attitude which ruthlessly examines values judgements which are rooted in the society of the past and a healthy skepticism of emerging new values .”2And A.A Agagu declares: “By and large, the environment is the single most Important factor in shaping the administrative process of any country. It sets the objectives, constrains and techniques that can be employed so as to determine the level of performance.”3 03. Another constraint we are going to face is the fact that most areas of activities in the public service do not subject themselves to precise measurement. Even if we can laboriously work out some pin-point standards of performance in areas involving physical construction or production such as building a house or growing certain crops, a lot of performance other than those required directly for the physical construction or production have to be carried out before during and after the construction or production, which can only be perceived sensorily rather than counted physically. And whenever you have to depend on human perception in making assessment, then, you are right in the realm of value judgment. That renders common objectivity difficult to attain, and results would have to be based on subjective opinions. 04. The fear of imperfections should however, not deter us from pursing our examination of this topic. All I would advise is that all of us in this audience should not take anything hook, line and sinker, without first applying a critical look. To make the task more amenable to treatment I would prefer to narrow the consideration down to SERVICE MANAGEMENT rather than take the whole areas of public administration. Surely there are two broad distinguishable aspects to public service. One aspect has to do with the dictates of politics as they may affect public policy, the public purposes of economics and sociology, social, moral, and national consciences, international or intergovernmental relationships, and all matters pertaining to the directive principles of State policy. It is hardly possible to touch any of these areas without having to involve politics of one kind or the other. In fact, I would wonder if the running of this aspect of public service could permit strict scientific approach in the handling of matters, since political expediency is the consideration that always dominate. Such a trait is even the more pronounced when we, laymen, are made to marvel as politicians engage in “intensive partisanship and combative politics which can only lead to intolerance and bigotry at the expense of state or national cohesion”4. Therefore, it could easily be permissible in the political aspect of the public service for a large dose of mediocrity and inefficiency to be hidden within a thick layer of seeming competence and efficiency through the manipulation of party politics. 05. But we need to note that most imperfections in the interplay of political statecraft may not adversely affect public service productivity or efficiency visibly once service management is allowed to run its course independently. Such imperfections could be neutralized through clever handling by bureaucrats aimed at sustaining the good image of government. Service Management06. What then is this service management aspect of the public service? If we define the political aspect of the public service as “an art in ruler ship which is concerned with the initiation, formulation and implementation of public policy for particular purposes in a defined territorial area”5 and which observed the need and essence of adapting to the ecology of the society from time to time; then we can go further to define the service management aspect as “the art and science of establishing and manipulating the appropriate instruments of organizations that would best aid and abet the intent, dictates and purposes of public administration for good governance”6. Of course, this is the aspect of the public service that easily renders itself to rest squarely on scientific management. This means that it could permit the application of the best possible methods to achieve the best possible results at the least possible cost so as to derive the greatest possible benefits. Here, it can be seen at once that competence and efficiency are highly demanded and that if they are in short supply, the effect would show and be felt in administration. Therefore, we can say that mediocrity and inefficiency will hit much harder on service management than they could do in the other areas of public administration. Why do we have Mediocrity and Inefficiency?07. Yes, mediocrity and inefficiency have always been observed generally in the public service, not just here in this State but everywhere in Nigeria. It is generally perceived that productivity and efficiency is higher in the private sector of the economy than in the public sector. Many observers have wrongly blamed it on bureaucracy. But I do not believe that bureaucracy is the culprit because, after all, the large corporations in the private sector also practice bureaucracy, which is inevitable in the running of any large organization. Therefore, I suggest we should better examine the factor of morale and motivation as a mechanism for promoting efficiency and productivity in the work place. Morale and Motivation08. In management theory, morale and motivation are two inseparable terms. Morale is the spiritual or inner compelling urge governing a person’s attitude towards a given endeavor. It is what makes the human mood tick high or low at any particular moment under any circumstances. It is what determines whether a person will be in high or low spirit in handling an issue. Motivation, on the other hand, is the external stimuli, which induce high or low activation of morale in human being at a given time for a given purpose. We can thus say that morale is like the pusher from within while motivation is like the pusher from without. We can also say further that motivation is the external generating power of morale or that morale is the internal generating power of motivation. Both have direct or positive correlation in the sense that when morale is high, motivation will also be high and vice versa. The relevance of Morale and Motivation to efficiency and productivity09. The concern for morale and motivation as a factor in personnel management came about through the Human Relations School of Management; challenging the postulates of the Scientific Management School that all you need to make people work is the stick and carrot, i.e threats and incentives. We cannot go into the details of the theories here but only to summarize that while one school of thought, believes that all that the human being needs is material inducement, the other school believes that man does not live by bread alone, and so he may appreciate honour, prestige, and all that, as well. While Henri Fayol, Frederick Taylor etc. championed one school, Douglas Mcgregor, Eton Mayo & Co were the protagonists of the other school. 10. What all these people are after is to find the correct motivation mix that would gear up a worker to want to do his best on his job. But the whole mechanism rests on goal setting for achievement standard, and the provision of rewards to compensate achievements. This is where the problem lies in the public service. Are there definite goal settings and appropriates timely and commensurate rewards for achievement? Goal Setting11. Let us begin with goal setting. Is it a common practice in the public service to set specific and particular goal for a particular worker or even group of workers? When goals are lacking, then there is no standard to aim at. How then do you measure the efficiency of any individual or group? I think that it should be a challenge to modern administration to find the means of measuring productivity or effectiveness in the public service. Certainly, goal setting is not an impossible task. Take the specific projects in the capital budgets, let us say road ‘A’. We can set the efficiency and productivity goal by stipulating that the road should be completed to a specified standard within a given cost of money and period of time, using a given number and categories of workers. That is setting a standard and a goal of achievement, which could provide, a frame of motivation for those engaged on the road project.12. Duties at the managerial level are rather too complex to permit predetermined specification of standard of achievement. Goal setting in this respect should be through leadership by example in which case the leader must always ensure he sets good examples in his work behaviour, since his subordinates may see such as the standard to emulate. But down the line such as in the case of clerks, typist, artisans etc, their work can be subjected to some sort of standard performance measurement. Elsewhere, I have suggested a Points-Ratings System through which workers could be awarded positive or negative scores according to how they performed or behave on specific areas of work over time. The mechanism is elaborated upon on page 74 of my book, the NIGERIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND SERVICE MANAGEMENT, where the standard score for the year is 20 points which is the average for all workers scoring above that standard means bonus to be rewarded; and scoring below means penalty deserving punishment in varying degrees according to the buoyancy of the bonus or the severity of the penalty.7 It is very, very important not to set standards that are not attainable, and all stipulated conditions of behaviour in the process of pursuing achievements must be made very clear to all stakeholders, including rewards for success or penalties for failure. No one must be left in ambiguity, and all must be given equal opportunity to make efforts to the best of their abilities. The Reward System13. The reward system in the civil service does not give quick recognition to outstanding talent. Everybody, the good, the bad and the ugly will have to queue up, waiting their return for promotion, since seniority counts so much in that regard. And it is so difficult to do away with seniority without risking gross injustice. Now, the existing open performance reporting system is a shade better than the confidential (secret) reporting of the past because it could guide against deliberate injustice borne out of unnecessary prejudice. But the serious problem with the open system is the insincerity of most supervisors in writing the report merely to please the reportees. This in most cases is due to the lack of courage on the part of the supervisors to call a spade a spade for fear of hurting the subordinate to his face. But there is this other reason which is the feeling by the supervisor that in so far as even lesser performances by subordinates could earn flying grades from other supervisors, why must he be so strict in writing the report of his own subordinates, thus placing them at an undue disadvantage? I really sympathize with such genuine sentiment. Yet, the fact remains that “dishonest appraisal undermines responsible leadership control”. It helps neither the individual nor the organization.14. In my opinion, the real motivational value of the open reporting system is the opportunity it offers for the supervisor to discuss the performance of his subordinate with him. Most unfortunately, both parties are, in practice, very negligent about this important aspect, which could have further help in seeing through the officer in relation to his work and his boss. I believe that the final grading of the subordinate by the supervisor should have been left till after the discussion of the subordinate’s performance with him. In that wise, the supervisor would have had the opportunity to make total assessment of the situation, having heard from the subordinate his own response to the views of his boss, before doing the grading. Promotion and Preferment 15. Promotion and preferment is a great instrument of motivation because it is a most fundamental means of rewarding good performance. But the selection process poses serious problem since you can neither rely totally on seniority nor merit. Promotion based on seniority alone could sometimes be de-motivating since it could enable the mediocre to move up the ladder over, or along with, the better performers. And you cannot bet on merit rating because of the defective performance reporting, as already noted. Maybe what to do is to find a mid-way, which would take account of both seniority and merit in determining eligibility for promotion and preferment. Perhaps a resort may be made to some kind of test in extended interview designed to identify the men and women of competence as well as those who are mediocre. 16. There is this other trend emanating from this idea of geopolitical or geographical spread, otherwise known as federal character, which could encourage mediocrity and inefficiency in service management. This has to allocate promotion or preferment in career position on quota basis, in which case a less competent officer could be preferred over and above a more competent counterpart just because a particular geopolitical or geographical area must be awarded post. You can do such things in political appointments but not in career appointments, if we do not want to kill the zest for excellence and thus inadvertently promote mediocrity and inefficiency. Instant Reward Outstanding Performance17. As we know that expectation of reward sweetens labour, instant reward could propel workers to increase their efforts for yet greater achievement. But it does not seem to me that Civil Service operations permit instant rewards; whereas we can promote increased efficiency through special rewards in many areas of government operations. If, for instance, you give a poultry officer | |
DIRECTORATE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY |