Workshop to enhance performance of civil service held
The Chairperson of the Public Services Commission (PSC), Mrs Bridget Katsriku, has urged public sector workers to support the government’s efforts at transforming the sector into a more viable one.
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She called on heads of the various public institutions to place their personnel at the right places to enable them to contribute effectively to the growth of the sector.
Mrs Katsriku said that at the opening ceremony of a five-day “train-the-trainer” workshop on performance management system organised for public sector workers in Accra.
The workshop, which is under the auspices of the PSC and the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC), is targetted at 60 public sector officials from the ministries, departments, agencies as well as training institutions in Ghana.
It is expected that the training would equip the participants with the requisite knowledge in the training of civil servants or public sector workers.
Low productivity
Mrs Bridget Katsriku attributed the low productivity in the public sector to the lack of properly defined job descriptions and weak supervision.
Such acts, according to her, had led to the widely held perception that the Ghanaian public servant was lazy, insensitive and corrupt.
“There is generally low productivity in the public service and this has trickled down to the private sector who complain of not receiving prompt and quality services from us to enable them to achieve their performance targets,” she stressed.
She indicated that the low productivity could only be done away with if public sector workers made a conscious effort to change their attitude towards work.
Additionally, the chairperson stated that the PSC would endeavour to implement every policy, programme, as well as rules and regulations that would be recommended after the workshop for the general good of the public sector worker for public sector transformation.
Change in the way of doing things
The Head of the Local Government Service, Dr Callistus Mahama, charged public servants to move away from the old way of doing things.
Without a change in that respect, Dr Mahama said, it would be difficult to see the kind of reforms and transformation that the PSC envisaged for the public sector.
“We can go for a lot of training and workshop. But if we are not prepared to change the way we do things, we will keep on repeating the same mistakes,” he said.
The Australian High Commissioner to Ghana, Ms Joana Adamson, said the partnership between the PSC and the APSC would deepen the ties between the two countries.
“This is a step toward improving the overall performance of the Ghanaian public sector to deliver better public services for the country,” she said.