Calabar — The Bureau for Public Enterprises held a special retreat in Calabar at the weekend for all federal permanent secretaries and heads of ministries, departments and agencies.

The two day retreat, tagged, "Programme for procurement retreat for permanent secretaries" was held to brainstorm on how best to implement the 2012 budget. In his welcome remarks, the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Chief Edem Duke said the Federal Government's transformational agenda would succeed only with critical input of permanent secretaries, stressing that the importance of public and civil servants in any government cannot be over emphasised.

The Head of Service of the Federation, Alhaji I. B. Sali, who flagged off the retreat, urged the participants to come up with ideas that will make the civil service better.

BPE Director-General, Mr Emeka Ezeh on his part, said the retreat was aimed at re-engineering the accounting officers of the Federal Government to ensure that the 2012 budget is implemented 100 per cent as directed by the president.