FG needs to reassess qualification, commitment of staff – Onyeka Onwenu

Immediate past Director General, National Centre for Women Development (NCWD) has expressed fears over the level of qualification of staff at various agencies and parastatals of government.
According to the former artiste, if the country’s quest to become one of the 20 leading economies by the year 2020 is to realised then the Federal Government should scrutinize the level of qualification and commitment of staff who work in various government parastatals.
Sharing her experience as former DG, she noted that there was low morale and lack of commitment among staff with many of them spent the day loitering and gossiping, further pointing out that many of the staff would not arrive at their duty post up until 11 am, only to leave before 3 pm while some were absent for months and just collecting their salary at home.
“Somehow, these people were given the impression that they could attempt to do what they did to me and nothing would happen. That is very sad indeed. The Ministry also has a case to answer. They helped to create that impression. A situation where the Ministry could invite a Management Staff to a trip abroad without informing the DG and the Staff would only inform her principal via txt message, from the Airport as she is leaving the country, creates an atmosphere of indiscipline and anything goes. The Ministry should restrain itself to its spelt out function and not undermine the authority of the Director General.”
“My administration changed all that. Most Staff were turned around and became passionate about the work, appreciating also the changes they thought were not possible but were happening right before them. There remained though, a remnant who felt that the Center was their personal preserve and that the position of Director General should only go to someone from their part of the country,” she recounted.
Onwenu continued “I was initially dismissed as just aWhen that did not work, I was targeted and abused for being an Igbo woman who came to give jobs to and elevate my people while sidelining them. When these detractors could not provide answers to the spate of improvement we were bringing, they resorted to sabotage and blackmail. The first such salvo was fired when a Senate Committee visited on an oversight mission a few months after my arrival. All three Generators at the Center were cannibalized, overnight, just hours to the visit. We got over that incident and trudged on.”
“The rest of our activities and accomplishments, modest as they is public knowledge. I have never in my life been an unfair person. I never favored any group I carried everybody along. But I did not put up with deliberate incompetence and a refusal to learn, an attitude of entitlement which some people displayed. We brought back a level of professionalism and commitment to deliver on our mandate. Without these attributes, the centre would have fallen apart.”