27th August, 2010
The Lagos State Government has warned officers against dereliction in the treatment of official correspondence and files just as it advised ministries and agencies to reduce their line of reporting for effective service delivery.
This was contained in a circular issued yesterday by the Head of Service, Mr. Adesegun Ogunlewe.
The state government issued a directive early this year giving officers in the state public service 48 hours within which to treat and complete assignments on correspondence and files.
The HOS, however, observed that the long line of reporting system adopted in most Ministries and Agencies of government where supervising officer minutes assignment to subordinate officers who in turn minute the same assignment to two or more low ranking officers was not only causing undue delay in the treatment of correspondence but also made it difficult to track officers responsible for any delay.
This long chain of command, according to Mr. Ogunlewe, “is rendering the 48 hours deadline on completion of assignments ineffective and of little or no significance”.
He, therefore, advised supervising officers to reduce the line of reporting in their respective MDAs and take steps to put appropriate tracking mechanism in place.
According to him, “supervising officers are enjoined to cultivate the habit of minuting mails and files to a particular officer in charge of a given responsibility for effective action rather than passing it down a chain of command”.
In order not to leave room for any lapse, he went further to state that in the absence of the Head of the MDAs, mails and files should be handled by the next most senior officer in accordance with the laid down regulations.