My continued search for national productivity

My continued search for national productivity 23 Aug 2015 12:00 AM  I rise with a deep sense of immense gratitude and humility to express the appreciation of my fellow awardees and I, for the honour to be considered worthy recipients of this prestigious National Productivity Order of Merit Award. At a personal level, I consider national productivity to be a huge challenge, and I regret that at all levels of the national economy, be it the public service or industry, we are not anywhere near the destination in the pursuit of a paradigm shift in Nigeria’s productivity profile which represents my own life long mission through research, professional practice directed specifically at civil service reform and governance institutional reengineering. The burden of this award, therefore, is that as recipients we have to buckle ourselves and gear up for more work as productivity champions in our different callings. I also sincerely wish that the National Productivity Order of Merit Award Committee through the National Productivity Centre will eventually build up a critical mass of awardees into a National Change Network, with members who will be willing to throw their entire energies into transforming our national predicament within the framework of government change agenda. I suppose, therefore, that I express our collective sentiments if I say we the 2015 recipients are pleased to be considered a part of that change dynamics. The idea of national productivity stands as the very core of Nigeria’s contemporary challenge as a nation. Without achieving an enviable global productivity profile, we can say with a certain level of certainty that no other critical pillars of development indices will fall in place in Nigeria. The challenge is as serious as that. The new administration of President Muhammadu Buhari was inaugurated around an agenda of change. I want to declare here that the very centre of that change paradigm is the need to reactivate our commitment to a paradigmatic shift in our productivity framework in a manner that is urgent and committed. Productivity cannot wait; it is essentially what defines national development and progress everywhere. A nation that puts little value on efficiency in the management of its national wealth; lacks maintenance culture; lacks nationally acknowledged benchmarks in service delivery, work culture and labour standards; glorifies a culture of ‘something for nothing’ in wealth acquisition; etc., don’t understand what development is all about. There are some more dimensions to our sociological reality as a nation that we must confront namely, public service operations that is concerned with input-process but do not account for output, results achieved and value-added; destructive market behaviour which emphasises consumption at the expense of production; material success at the expense of social responsibility; lack of a reading and reflective culture; religiosity bereft of spirituality; an instrumental perception of success in the short-term rather than the long-term; the culture of waste that superintends unbridled desire to show-off and celebrate everything—‘awards’, funerals, birthdays, admissions, graduation, new houses, travels, marriages, promotions, everything. In conclusion, and at within the framework of the government change agenda, the inspiring leadership by example of our President and transformative leadership model that is unfolding, the following are proposed for government to consider for implementation: a) getting the critical sectors of the economy to articulate their productivity plans based on agreed national benchmark; b) strategic integration of the various productivity plans and targets into the national plan by the National Planning Commission; c) launch of productivity metrics and tools to be deployed to enable employers and employees to begin to sign on to productivity bargaining and gain sharing contracts, to institutionalise a new performance-driven compensation system and skills-based workforce pricing in a broad sense; d) national-wide value system reorientation in the wings of a national integrity system that the Presidential Anti-Corruption Expert Committee will institute; e) national waste reduction strategy that is linked to a new national maintenance management policy and a new asset efficiency scheme around redefined guiding principles for the management of national infrastructure and assets; f) a new national qualification framework aligned to education, training, certification and skills pricing policies; g) input structure including capital-overhead-personnel benchmarks and local content policy; h) SME expansion programme and new regional industrial benefits policy; i) research, development and innovation; j) wage concessions be henceforth based on negotiated productivity agreements, etc. The goal of national productivity in Nigeria is possible. It just requires a huge dose of political willingness, administrative creativity and collective courage. We have begun the journey; it only requires some few more steps to get it done. Once again, let me express the profound gratitude of my fellow awardees and myself to His Excellency, Mr. President, for approving our nomination and for conferring the award and, to the National Productivity Order of Merit Award Committee, for considering us deserving of this award. Olaopa, a Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Communication Technology, Abuja. Nigeria, sent this piece via tolaopa2003@gmail.com. Copyright PUNCH. All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH. Contact: editor@punchng.com