General News
Ogunlana Warns Against Merit-Free Promotions, Calls for Improved Staff Training
The National Assembly on Friday kicked against externally influenced promotion of its staff not backed by merit, as provided for in the National Assembly Service Act 2014 and the applicable Scheme of Service.
It also kicked against existing ad hoc arrangements for personnel training, which it said were unsustainable and lacked the institutional capacity for which the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) is known.
The Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA), Kamoru Ogunlana (Esq.), made these submissions in his speech at the commencement of a three-day retreat for top management of the National Assembly and the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), held at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.
According to the CNA, the National Assembly Service is a professional service that requires staff to be appointed, promoted and developed principally on the basis of merit, competence, experience and performance, as stipulated by the National Assembly Service Act 2014.
“Where appointments or promotions are influenced by considerations outside the National Assembly Service Act 2014, and the applicable Scheme of Service, we risk creating serious institutional consequences, that is, judicial review, administrative embarrassment and institutional instability,” he warned.
He added that the consequences might not be limited to the individuals involved but could also affect the entire service.
“When seniority, cognate experience and competence are subordinated to ‘where you come from’ or other considerations, we may find ourselves with positions occupied by people who do not possess the requisite competence, experience or capacity for those responsibilities.
“The result can be an institution with too many people in positions and too few people with the capacity to perform effectively in those positions,” he stressed.
On training, the CNA said the time had come for the National Assembly to look inward for the training of its personnel through its affiliate agency, the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), given its institutional capacity and the need to conserve scarce resources.
He said: “Our staff require continuous exposure to legislative practice, parliamentary procedure, policy analysis, research, digital technologies, public financial management, ethics, leadership and emerging global practices in parliamentary administration.
“The present ad hoc arrangement of training personnel of the service is not sustainable given our limited financial resources.
“In this regard, I believe we should make more deliberate use of the considerable institutional capacity of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) as the central professional platform for the training and development of staff of the National Assembly Service.”
However, in his goodwill message, the Executive Chairman of the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), Chief Saviour Enyiekere, said the commission remained committed to fostering a disciplined, competent, responsive and forward-looking legislative service in which merit is recognised, due process respected, staff welfare receives appropriate attention, and every officer is encouraged to contribute meaningfully to institutional progress.
Both the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, were represented at the ceremony.