(By Fred Itua – ABUJA)
President of the Senate and Chairman of the Nigerian National Assembly, Bukola Saraki, has directed management to carry out a a comprehensive human resource audit of the National Assembly.
Chief of Staff to the Senate President, Senator Isa Galaudu, in a letter to the Clerk to the National Assembly, Mohammed Sani-Omolori, said the measure was aimed at “verifying the skills, efficiency and motivation of the employees of the National Assembly.”
The letter dated December 16, 2016 with the title “Carrying out a comprehensive human resource audit in the National Assembly” reads in part:
“We have made commendable strides in our continuous endeavor to attain the goals set out in the legislative agenda of the 8th National Assembly. We, however, must continue to deploy clear strategies that meet the challenges facing this institution and capitalize on the strengths that we possess.
“Even the best strategy will ultimately fail without the right people in the right places to execute it. Thus, it has become apparent that at this juncture one of the true challenges of the National Assembly is human capital.
“I hereby convey the decision of the President of the Senate that you carry out comprehensive Human Resource audit. You should kindly therefore engage the services of a reputable consulting firm with adequate Human Resources expertise to carry out a complete review and produce a report verifying the skills, efficiency and motivation of the employees of the National Assembly.
“Expected outcome of this engagement is a detailed assessment of the nominal roll, succession plan and furthermore to identify possible vacancies, duplications, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, limitations, and developmental needs of the existing organizational structure of the National Assembly.
“The President of the Senate expects the assessment to be completed within 90 days and progress reports be submitted regularly until completion.”
According to the Clerk in a letter addressed to Saraki, a committee has been set up and a “tested and trusted” unnamed consultant has been appointed to work closely with the committee.
He added that the committee has been inaugurated to verify and ascertain the actual staff strength of the National Assembly, determine the current structure and distribution of staff in terms of cadre, spread, etc, to establish skill gaps or excess capacity (if any) within the work force and to determine the structure and distribution of staff required for an ideal legislative management system, align it with the current staff status of the National Assembly.
The Clerk added that the process will be completed by the end of first quarter of 2017.