IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY OF NIGERIA CIVIL SERVICE
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
At the federal level, the Nigeria civil service is the most important sector of the nations economic systems. At the same time, when viewed from the state level, it is seen as the most important sector of the state economic system. Specific ally using Enugu state as a case study one can observe that the civil service of the state is performing below expectations. This ineffectiveness not with standing one sees it as a testimony that much priority is given to the administration and general welfare of the state. If the civil service perform sub-optimally, our health, education and general welfare must be adversely affected, productivity in private organization dwindles, profits position becomes poor, social responsibility of business manager and entrepreneur becomes neglected, employees are paid off taxes stop flowing into the government pursue and contribution to the nations growth generally are affected. Besides efficiency and productivity in the civil service lies a multiplier effect on the service and profit making activities of business enterprise. According to walker an economist, productivity and profit are linked firmly with progress because progress requires growth of both to adequately meet the aspiration of today’s business.
The Enugu state private sector is brought because of the activities of the small scale industrialists and merchants and the existence of large manufacturing companies like Niger gas at Emene in Enugu state, the Enugu, Anambra motor manufacturing company (ANAMMCO) Emene (a joint venture between the private and public sector with the government holding the equity and controlling share). The state private sector is this important on its own, but not as important as civil service which employs the greatest labour and spends more than 60% of its total revenue. The important of the state civil service will be appreciated not only considering the amount of capital it spends or amount of labour it employs but the number and kind of service it renders to its people, such as health, education, agriculture, information rural development and general welfare.
In fact, it is a center of great importance because other activities of the state depends on it the important of the Enugu state civil service, likewise other states cannot therefore be over emphasized. Its efficiency or otherwise will affect the general well being of the people off the state. Thus, education health and other basic comforts will be enjoyed or adversely affected, and the private sector will flourish or ware economically. The Enugu state government therefore, has a special role to play in other to improve the efficiency and productivity of the civil service.
1.2 PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH THE SUBJECT MATTER
Recently, the Nigeria civil service as a whole has come under incessant attack from all quarters. It has been called all sorts of names. It has been generally criticized for being inefficient, unresponsive, bureaucrat and lacking commitment to work the productivity of the civil service employee is know to be relatively low compared with that of other counterparts in the private sector. Ranks and tiles of employee of the civil service are blamed, no one is exonerated not ever the management. According to Dr. D.I the incontrovertible facts that many managers in the Nigeria public sector have tend to produce results that are far below what is feasible with the resources available to them. In Enugu state the inefficiency, ineffectiveness and low productivity has been attributed to some certain administrative short coming jobs are often abandoned during official hours in favour of personal gains, nepotism and lack of employee motivation, supervision, performance appraisal etc. agree with the researchers that before this present decade the work force in the country can be said to being heavily imbued with a set of values generally characterized by the term work ethnics” work then was regarded as hairy a spiritual meaning buttressed by such behavioural norms as punctuality, honesty, diligence and regality. One’s job then was a central life interest and provide the dormant due in interpersonal assessment. A work force with these sets of values is amendable to a more effective use by any management in its pursuit of the value of productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. But today, there is growing evidence that work ethnics as people are becoming less committed to work.
The big question one mighty however ask as this how do you measure efficiency, productivity and effectiveness in the civil service, since it is not composed of business enterprise, where productivity could be measured in terms of sales of unit of production, share of the market, net profit etc. in the sense of the civil service you cannot really measure productivity or efficiency in any of these terms. Efficiency is defined as the relationship between what is accomplished while productivity is defined as the ration of useful obtained, to the resources expended in expended in obtaining them. We can this, go from here to define productivity in terms of the civil service. Low productivity and inefficiencies not only result in goals but being accomplished quickly due but in addition heads to money being wastefully expended on idle time as wages and salaries and perhaps over time.
1.3 PROBLEMS THAT THE STUDY WILL BE CONCERNED WITH
Perhaps only very few researchers do not encounter problems during their investigation, considering the various kind of scope and limitation one can encounter in conducting a research. These scopes and limitation vary between one environment and another depending on such factors as the tempo rent of the respondent one is going to use the nature of the research (whether extensive or restrictive) level of education of te respondents, availability and reliability of secondary data. Other constraints are those within the researchers such as finance time and possible in accuracy of sample used.
1.4 THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING THE AREA.
Earlier the researchers pointed out the purpose of this study, which is : to determine the causes of low productivity and poor level of efficiency at the Enugu state civil services. The interest of the researchers is met only in identifying the causes of low productivity poor level of efficiency but also in propounding and ways and means of reverting the hopeless situation as labour efficiency or physical output per-non hour. This physical out put can be quantified only by means of indicating absenteeism and morale for instance. The civil service works or operates with a budget allocation. In many instances, efficiency in the civil service is viewed as the ability to lime with the budget allocation, it is often not easy to determine how judiciary and equitable the many budget has been used. This although performance may have been sub-optimal the ability of a department in the civil service to line with the budget.
The same department may be inefficient, and has therefore, to spend its budget allocation to the unit such a situation will most certainly call for a large budget allocation, because the planners will genuinely think this determines the important of the unit or department. Thus, so long as goals are achieved by the government various department or units being able to live with respective budget allocation, no one seems to care about the effort pit by the different categories of employees working in them. If productivity in the Enugu state civil state is high, immediately result shall not only be guaranteed, but in addition goals shall be attained quickly resulting in the saving of much finance which can used for attainment of future goals.
REFERENCES
Walker F.N (1973) Productivity Profit and Business Ethics: Advanced Management Journal vol. 38 No3 July.
Book J .I (1979) Problems of Efficiency in the Public Institution Extract From Oriented Management Approach in the Public Sector in Nigeria; Business Times; May 8.
Obe-Keguna H.U (1984) Work Motivation Research in Nigeria; Problem and Prospects A Paper Presented at Inaugural Conference of Nigeria, Psychological Association.
