By Kemi Olatunde

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Accounting Officers in  Ondo State have been charged to provide enabling environment for Change Ambassadors for the development of public service.

Head of Service, Pastor Kayode Ogundele gave the charge in his address at a one day workshop for Permanent Secretaries and Accounting Officers in line with the Ondo Service Improvement Programme (ODSIP) in Akure on Tuesday.

According to him, it is important to enhance efficient service delivery across all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) including the Local Governments in the State, noting that all should continue to give their best to make the system better.

He explained that it is important that they provide the enabling environment for  Change Ambassadors to effectively carry out their duties, stating that they can always swap non competent Change Ambassadors with more vibrant Officers so that they can effectively cascade received lectures from quarterly interactive sessions and other duties as directed by the Reform Office.

He explained that the Department of Public Service Reform and Development (DPSRD) has the mandate of driving and coordinating reform activities in the State, stating that it has been effective through the efforts of the Change Ambassadors across all MDAs.

 Ogundele revealed some of the strategies and tools for driving reforms under ODSIP to include; Change Ambassadorship, Newsletter publications, Feedback mechanism, ONDOHRM, among others.

He stressed the need for them to coach, inspire, enlighten and also supervise the activities of the Change Ambassadors for the development of the public service and the State at large.

He charged the Permanent Secretary, Local Government Service Commission on the need to always inform the Heads of Local Government Administration (HOLGA) to pay close attention to their Change Ambassadors by giving them all the needed support and ensuring that they perform optimally or risk substitution.

In a lecture titled; “the impact of planning control on effective service delivery”, Permanent Secretary, Ogun State Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Mr. Oyejola Oyeneye noted that for effective public service, MDAs must emplace adequate planning and control systems as well as skills to tackle uncertainties facing the policy and programmes implementation and mandates actualisation.

He recommended that government strengthens planning office cadre, encourage peaceful coexistence among all cadres, strengthens the state Bureau of Statistics to generate more data and support planning as well as deploy adequate information technology and capacity building.

There was also another lecture on stress management in an organization by a Health Communication Specialist, Dr. Gbenga Adebayo.