Thursday March 28, 2024

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Professor Umar Danbatta, says "government should introduce Public Service Excellence Award for MDAs that excel in all spheres of their operations in order to increase productivity and efficiency". Such initiative, will be good incentives for the Public Sector which is under increasing pressure to demonstrate that its operations are consumer-centric and there is continuous improvement in performance.

Danbatta made this advocacy at Arewa House this morning in a paper titled  pdf EVALUATING THE FRAMEWORK FOR MEASURING THE QUALITY OF SERVICE DELIVERY IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR (138 KB) , which was presented on his behalf by Ubale Maska, NCC's Executive Commissioner Technical Services, at the National Stakeholders' Conference on Public Service Delivery in Nigeria.

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At the Conference, which thematic focus is Building Government Capabilities for Service Delivery: Implementing Performance, Danbatta noted that the dynamism in the tempo and sophistication of consumer needs and expectations demands impeccable quality of service delivery. He submits that this reality imposes new strategies for success and survival in today's competitive business environment, and the outcomes correlate to the wellness of economies.

Danbatta said organisations that express passion for the consumer must be honest, give adequate value for money, offer quality products or services, demonstrate high reputation, offer user-friendly processes, meet deadlines, accept and respond to criticisms, as well as institute open complaint management processes.

These are the bouquet NCC serves and continues to improve upon even in the face of challenges of service delivery in the Nigerian public sector. Danbatta told the well-attended conference. He said the Nigerian public service must deal with the absence of monitoring of outcomes; failure to hold people accountable for poor service delivery; shortage of service capacity and inaccessibility; poor service quality and customer care; as well as lack of support services in the area of finance, technology, procurement, and personnel that are required for qualitative service delivery.

The NCC Chief Executive Officer told the conference that the pre-eminence of the consumer among several stakeholders in the telecom sector is demonstrated in the 8-Point Agenda unveiled by the Management of the Commission in 2016. He said NCC's determination to ensure availability, affordability and accessibility to the Nigerian telecom consumer explained the declaration of 2017 as the YEAR OF THE NIGERIAN TELECOM CONSUMER.

Danbatta outlined some of the key aspects of NCC framework for ensuring quality service delivery to include Consultative regulation of the communications industry, Transparent licensing processes, Technology neutrality, Consumer outreach programmes, Robust complaints management processes, Multiplatform communication management, and Level playing field for all licensees to ensure fair competition.

Danbatta seized the opportunity to address the questions raised by participants about service delivery in telecommunications and  promised that NCC will ensure improvement in the quality of service using the extant key performance indicators.