Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State Wednesday swore-in the new Head of Civil Service (HoS) in the state.
On the same occasion, the governor announced the re-engagement of the retired HoS, who he said will now serve as a member of a technical team that will be saddled with the responsibility of replicating an agricultural cooperative model similar to that of Moroccan COPAG, Cooperative Agricole, which the state has understudied and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with.
The new Head of Service, Alhaji Abubakar Muhammad (Mni), was appointed after the retirement of his retired predecessor, Alhaji Sani Garba Shuni.
Speaking at the ceremony, Gov. Tambuwal said the appointment of the new Head of Service was based on merit and seniority.
He described Alhaji Muhammad as a hardworking, industrous, intelligent person with the energy and capacity to drive the affairs of state Civil Service, which has before the advent of this administration suffered some setbacks.
The governor, therefore, appealed to the Civil Servants in the state to give the new administrator maximum cooperation in the state government’s effort to reform the Civil Service.
In the same breadth, he urged the new Head of Service to use his intelligence and vast network of experience in moving the affairs of civil service forward.
While congratulating him, he urged him to try to make the state Civil Servants ICT compliant as the world is now going digital.
He assured workers in the state of his administration’s commitment to their welfare noting that so far the government has been paying salary, pension and gratuity as at when due.
According to him, in furtherance of its reform efforts, the state government has completed the verification of state civil servants while that of the local government staff is ongoing after which that of teachers in the state will be done.
To that effect, th governor said he has directed the atate local government education secretaries to submit the authentic list of their teaching and non teaching staff in their respective local government areas.
He said they were also cautioned to forthright while carrying out the assignment, noting that anyone of them found wanting will be called to account for his wrongdoing.
Tambuwal added that the exercise is not to witch-hunt anybody, rather it is to cleanse the Civil Service system for effective service delivery.
Turning to the retired Head of Service, the governor appreciated his tenure in office and announced that both him and the person he succeeded, Alhaji Buhari Bello Kware will be part of a technical team to work towards the actualization of the Moroccan cooperative business model.
He said the COPAG model is known globally for the establishment and provision of dairy and associate products to its populace within the North African country as well as abroad.
He urged civil servants in the state to key venture into private businesses as state government is willing to strengthen it’s promotion of entrepreneurship in the state.
