August 26, (THEWILL) – The Akwa Ibom State Government said it has started the digitisation of some aspects of the civil service for efficiency and sustainable service delivery, while also providing a housing scheme that will see officials own personal homes.
The Head of Civil Service of the state, Elder Effiong Essien, said the digitalisation would remove some bottlenecks experienced especially in the processing of workers leave, salary and retirement benefits.
Speaking in an interview in Uyo, the state capital, on Thursday, Essien explained that workers would be trained in the digitalisation process as the computerised system will help to enhance operations, adding that some aspects of the civil service had already been digitized.
He mentioned that the government had embarked on the training of its workforce, particularly for workers on levels 10 to 13, and permanent secretaries, to address the issue of poor attitude to work and increase efficiency.
He said: “We are embarking on an asset management investment solutions to the running of the service. This involves the digitalisation of records, the human resource records of the service and computerizing them so that we are not dealing with these processes manually only.
“They apply computer knowledge to handle processes that were before now duly manual; and these solutions will soon be launched and applicable in the day to day running of the service.
“This will greatly take away delays in so many aspects of the processes, processing of people’s retirement, processing of leave and even salary payment that is already computerized, but these processes will add improvement to what has already been on ground in terms of that.”
The HOC revealed that the government was developing a housing estate for workers on a rent-to-own-a-house basis, stating that already over 200 houses have been given out to workers on that basis.
“The system is like you rent to own a house of your own. There is one at Nsit Ibom, opposite Ikot Ntuen Nsit, opposite the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), and over 200 housing units have been completed there and off-taken by workers through the Federal Mortgage Bank in liaison with this office.
“We are also developing another one in Ibiono, still within the state capital, around Ikot Adaidem, where work is in progress for housing units. One bedroom units, two bedroom units and three bedroom units.”
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