Idi Faruk, the Director-General, National Orientation Agency (NOA), has decried the decay in the Nigerian public service, regarded as the best before independence.

Faruk in a keynote address at the one-day workshop organised by the NOA in Owerri on Tuesday, said the unethical conduct in public service was threatening the collective prosperity of the nation.

Faruk, represented by the Imo Director of the agency, Dr Vitus Ekeocha, said that public service had become the whipping dog of the populace and inefficient political office holders of successive administrations.

He said the civil service was no more a virile national institution for advancing the welfare and wellbeing of the people as it used to be in the past.

Faruk said that the public service was being derided as inefficient, incompetent and corrupt and having little or no regard for the needs and preferences of the citizens in the delivery of service.

He noted that there was sufficient evidence to show that the Nigerian public service needed a massive moral and ethical regeneration in order to win back the public trust.

The NOA chief said that the theme of the workshop, “Raising Integrity Standards in the Public Service” was most appropriate to restore order in the public service and resolve other challenges confronting Nigeria as a nation.

Earlier, Imo director of the agency, said that the workshop was organised in the context of the ongoing reforms in the public service to energise and transform the public service toward attainment of goals of vision 20:20:20 .

Ekeocha said that the public service reforms had confronted the administrators with new ethical dilemma, which the traditional integrity management instruments provided very poor answers.

He said that the workshop would help to equip and strengthen the capacity of public servants in applied ethics to achieve improved integrity standards in the service.

Ekeocha, was represented on the occasion by Mr Innocent Iwuchukwu, an Assistant Director (Operations) of the agency in Imo.

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