By Ngozi Nwankwo
Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, Dr. Hamid
Bobboyi has lamented over the non performance of duties of its Zonal and State Offices.
Bobboyi disclosed this at the two-day meeting of UBEC management with Zonal Directors, Officers in the Directorate cadre and state coordinators, on strengthening Zonal and state offices for improved efficiency and productivity.
He said the meeting provided opportunity to bring participants up-to-date with the present administration’s expectation from all government agencies to key into President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renew Hope Agenda with the goal of transforming the country towards prosperity.
While saying that, the States and Local Governments are constitutional responsibility for UBE delivery in Nigeria, Bobboyi explained that n the course of time, it was observed that the Zonal and State Offices were becoming incapacitated.
He said the functions of the field offices were gradually usurped and concentrated in Headquarters.
” For example, the Headquarters became comfortable sending staff members from Abuja to the fields to perform assignments that the Zonal and State Offices were established to perform. It got to a level that staff members sent from Headquarters to the States will not bother to visit the Zonal and State offices to announce their presence in the States.
” The Commission’s Departments will implement activities in the States without the knowledge and participation of the UBEC State Offices. Project and other monitoring activities, which are among the Commission’s major functions also suffered. The staff members in the Headquarters were known to engage their colleagues in the field offices to monitor projects and activities for which they were fully paid to perform. This led to the submission of inaccurate reports which resulted in payments being made for shoddy jobs and uncompleted projects,” he said.
Speaking further on the consequences of non performance of SUBEB, Bobboyi said, “The effects of these negative developments did not only rub off on the degree of the efficiency and image of the Commission as a whole, it promoted redundancy and absenteeism among the staff members in the field offices. To say the least, the morale of staff members in the field offices began to ebb.
“It was these developments that triggered the decision of the Management to review its implementation structure, arriving at the critical decision that some reorganisation is necessary and urgent and that one of the key areas that should receive immediate attention is the strengthening of the Zonal and State Offices and empowering them to perform the functions assigned to them when they were established.”
He emphasise that there is only one Commission with Departments, Units and field offices created to work together towards facilitating the achievement of its mandates, adding that it would amount to waste of resources if, for whatever reasons, these departments, units and field offices are not working together in harmony.
While saying that the two-day meeting w
was a step in the efforts to further improve basic education service delivery in Nigeria, the Executive Secretary urged the participants to deliberate on the guidelines and strategies Commission has developed to assist in turning things around in the Zonal and State offices.
He, therefore, assured all of Management support in the areas of staffing and staff training, provision of working tools, decent office accommodation, funding, transportation, and others essential for productive work.
Bobboyi , however, urged the field officers, to take leadership in ensuring that this reorganisation succeeds at their levels.
“When you see anything capable of impeding the achievement of our goal, you have a responsibility to use the existing channel of communication to draw attention to it for immediate remedial action. Otherwise, you may be held responsible should anything untoward occur. For the officers in the Headquarters you are equally to ensure that the guidelines are strictly followed. You have to share responsibilities as defined, let go of those that are fully devolved to the field offices and ensure synergy,” he said.