The State House Management and Heads of government agencies under its supervision held a one-day retreat to prepare for the issuance of the call circular for the commencement of the 2025 budget exercise.
Declaring the retreat open, Vice President Senator Kashim Shettima, represented by the Deputy Chief of Staff, Senator Ibrahim Hadeija, urged the Heads of Agencies to be guided by the extant provisions that establish their organisations.
Senator Shettima emphasized: “This is a very important retreat to remind senior civil servants, new appointees and Heads of Agencies about the Civil Service regulations. These regulations can be quite tedious, and the Permanent Secretary, State House, was right when he said some of these issues will come back to his table.”
He also commended the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, for participating in the retreat and insightful presentation titled “Delineation of roles and functions between the management and the agency and its supervising entity: A prerequisite for good relationship and effective delivery of Mandate.”
In his overview of the retreat, Permanent Secretary Olufunsho Adebiyi explained: “In order for us to drive the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu it has become necessary for us to synergize within the State House and all the agencies under its control.”
He added: “The retreat is structured to define who is responsible for what, how we can help each other achieve our mandates, and some of us are meeting each other for the first time. It is necessary to define our roles and limits and avoid breaking financial, procurement, administrative thresholds.”
The Permanent Secretary also highlighted: “We now have new public service rules that defines when to promote, who is due for promotion, mode of promotion, procedure and conduct of promotion examinations and strict adherence to public service rules.”
He further stated: “The Retreat, the first of its kind under this administration, also deliberated on the need for strict enforcement of government policies and sanctions for defaulting agencies.”
The agencies whose establishing Acts place them under the supervision of the State House include the Bureau of Public Enterprises, Bureau for Public Procurement, Nigeria Agriculture and Land Development Agency, among others.
