The minister of Public Service, Administrative Reforms, Policy Coordination and Delivery, has announced that the payment of pension gratuity is now centralized at the Personnel Management Office (PMO).
Baboucarr Bouy made this disclosure on Friday during an exclusive interview with Information Officer Lamin Darboe at his officer in Banjul where he also dilated on issues within his portfolio.
"Everything regarding the administration and processing of the pension has already been handed over to the PMO by the Accountant General's office, and now Accountant General's office will only be responsible for the payment of the pension gratuity," Minister Bouy explained.
He also explained that a Service Centre is being set-up at the PMO and is nearly completed, adding that when the centre is fully complete for operations, it will serve as a feedback mechanism and will handle enquires and concerns from the public within and outside the country.
"We want to save people from travelling long distance to come to us for enquiries.We want them to reach us through phone calls, without leaving whatever they were doing," Minister Bouy noted.
According to him, his sector is working on Service Process Simplification (SPS) to optimize public service delivery mechanism in government.
On the issue of services rendered to the public, Minister Bouy explained that services rendered by the Public Service are not favours, but entitlements to be provided to the public with high degree of standard.
He advised public servants to adhere to the Rule Books, such as: General Orders, Public Service Regulations, and Code of Conduct among others, which he said were prepared to guide the operations of public servants in their work.
He went further to explain that lack of adherence to the Rule Books is one of the biggest administrative challenges in the public service. Generally, he went on, "most public servants are not actually going by the dictates of these Rule Books and unless we refer ourselves to them, we will continue to encounter problems".
In the past, Minister Bouy explained, The Gambia's Civil Service was considered as one of the best civil services within the sub-region. He argued that it was not a magic because the then public servants were adhering to the Rule Books unlike today.
