April 9, 2021

The Lagos State Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Mrs. Ajibola Ponnle, has reiterated the commitment of the State Government to an efficient and motivated Civil Service that is result-oriented, just as she revealed that Pension verification exercise can now be done online by pensioners.

Ponnle, who disclosed this while featuring as a guest on a Lagos Television Programme tagged “Lagos Today”, stated that the administration of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is committed to capacity building in the Public service to drive the 21st century economy as enshrined in the T.H.E.M.E.S Agenda.

The Commissioner noted that the Ministry of Establishments, Training and Pensions training policy is based on four strategic pillars which are: Accelerating Capacity Development, Knowledge Sharing, Leveraging Technology and Deepening/Increasing Professionalisation within the Public Service, adding that these four strategic pillars have helped in skilling and upskilling of Public Servants across the State.

Ponnle said that despite the disruption that came with COVID-19, the Ministry didn’t allow it to disrupt the capacity development programme of the State’s Public Service, saying “Every crisis presents an opportunity, we didn’t want the pandemic to slow us down in the capacity development of the Public Servants, therefore we accelerated the deployment of our online training initiative which made us move to webinar training sessions for staff in order to enable experts train the officers online”.

The Commissioner added that a platform named LASG LMS was created to put learning system online, stressing that the initiative is fit for purpose and customised for learning and training courses in a variety of delivery methods.

While noting that the development is a radical exponential change in learning, she averred that with the LMS, public servants will have access to over 8000 LinkedIn courses which are based on Leadership, Communication, Human Resources, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) among others’

Mrs. Ponnle said that the new mantra of the Ministry is “Learning is a Lifestyle”, as the platform can be accessed on mobile devices from anywhere.

On pension administration, the Commissioner stressed that over N16.75 billion has been earmarked as a redemption fund account in order to clear the backlog of pension arrears.

“The goal for us in this administration is to clear the backlog of pension arrears and by the second quarter of 2022, we should be able to achieve this. This will ensure that when Public servants retire they will be able to access their retirement savings account (R.S.A) immediately”, the Commissioner stated.

She further affirmed that by leveraging on technology, the verification exercise for pensioners has been moved online for easy access, maintaining that this has eliminated queues by aged Pensioners as they can do the verification exercise online at the comfort of their homes and even when on visits abroad.