| Governor Udom Emmanuel |
Governor Udom Emmanuel has announced the automation of Akwa Ibom State Civil Service and Asset Management System (AMS) for transparency and efficiency of its operations.
Governor Emmanuel made this known on Thursday, while declaring open a one-day Training Workshop on the Human Resource Management System (HRMS) for the State Executive Council members at Ibom Icon Hotels and Golf Resort, Uyo.
The Governor said the automation of the service will reposition it for more efficiency and seamless operations, adding that challenges earlier experienced with promotions, retirements, pensions and gratuity will be a thing of the past as errors will be minimised.
The State Chief Executive further said the full automation of the service will be completed by January 31, 2022, assuring that the integration of the Human Resource Management System and Asset Management System will be safe as its operations will be backed with an efficient storage device to enhance productivity.
“We want to leave the Civil Service much better than we met, we will first of all start with automation of the full Asset Management Processes of government and we want to do automation of the contract systems, how contracts are awarded, how they are being paid for, how they are monitored, how progress is made, everything then completion and releases.
‘Then the critical aspect that we must anchor from the point you join the Civil Service up to the point you become a pensioner is what we are doing right now it is called Human Resource Management (HRM) application software which is what we are doing right now and we intend to do a live cut-over by January 31 so that we can go live.
“Every single person must go live by January 31. So anybody coming to work on February 1 in the MDAs is coming into a total different approach and I’m believing that the Asset Management will do a total cutover by March 31.
“So by April 1, I won’t do anything manual again, including vehicle requisitions.
“What that means is that a whole lot of things that were done manually before now will be fully automated. We are trying to make it user friendly and you can access it anywhere with your phones and laptops once you have a smart device you can access the system especially the HRM system where you can check on any information.
“The benefits are enormous in terms of cost, efficiency and information management and we are trying to reduce error in the system”
“The whole complaints about pension, gratuity, even issues of payroll, promotions, ghost workers, paying the wrong people and the likes, will be sorted out immediately, so once people enter this system, the system will work automatically: promotions, retirement, pensions, and gratuity; it is supposed to be a fully integrated HRM systems”, the Governor added.
In his opening remarks, the Head of Civil Service, Elder Effiong Essien thanked Governor Udom Emmanuel for his policy to introduce automation of the Civil Service, which he noted will upgrade operations of service from analogue to digital.
Elder Essien said the training and re-training of key and principal operators of Human Resource Management remains a cardinal objective of enhancing efficiency of Civil Service, and appealed to the Governor to build a data center to store hardware components of Human Resource Management.
“Let me thank the Governor for giving us the idea to push and the needed resources to introduce this system of efficiently running the Akwa Ibom Civil/Public Service and thereby upgrading it from analogue to digital and automated service.
“Please permit me your Excellency the Governor to request Ministry of Housing to expedite action on the building of a Data Center for safe housing of the hardware components of both the HRMS and AMS”, he added.