FCT Minister Wants Institutionalization of Maintenance Cadre in Civil Service

By: Wisdom Acka

Following poor maintenance of Public Buildings across the country, which is the bane of public utilities, FCT Minister, Mallam Muhammad Bello has called for the institutionalization of a Maintenance Cadre in the Civil Service to plug the gap.

The Minister made the call during the flag-off ceremony for the rehabilitation of the Federal Secretariat Complex, Phase 1, on Tuesday in Abuja.

Bello regretted that the current practise where maintenance of public buildings was outsourced through procurement has not yielded the desired results.

He stated that effective maintenance and sustainable management of public facilities in the Territory could only be effectively done by staff, who are employed on a full time basis and would grow through the ranks.

According to him, maintenance job needed garnering experience, instead of contractors who usually hired personnel and paid them meagre amounts and, mostly, do not deliver quality jobs.

Bello recalled that the Federal Secretariat was commissioned over 30 years ago, and hence needed to be rehabilitated and reinvigorated to continue to serve the purpose it was built.

He stated that the state of decay in the public facilities was worrisome and urgent steps needed to be taken to tackle the menace.

His words: “Facilities management is ideal and practicable if there are measures and policies put in place to ensure that. If not, it will not bring the desired results”

Speaking earlier, the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folasade Yemi – Esan, underscores the imperativeness to rehabilitate the Secretariat; saying a conducive environment would spur staff to be more productive.

She, however, explained that funding has been a major challenge to the rehabilitation work, but expressed confidence in the completion of the work with full support of the FCTA.