By Aliyu Dalandi
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, has called on Federal Controllers of Works in the country to be proactive and committed to effective monitoring of projects.
Fashola made the call on Monday in Kaduna at the opening of a capacity-building workshop organised by the ministry for the 37 Federal Controllers of Works in the country.
The theme of the workshop is “Learning and Development for Greater Stature”.
The minister said that the controllers were being trained to change the way public officers responded to their assignments “and begin to see roads as their projects’’.
“We are pushing an agenda with the civil service, starting with the controllers that getting to the next level is a matter of what you do and how it affects human life.
“So, we expect that at the end of the workshop, we will see project components and for them as controllers, their projects will be the roads.
“We are going to access them by `motorability’ of roads in their various states,” he said.
He said that the controllers would be trained on leadership and emotional intelligence, adding that electronic gadgets would be given to them.
The minister said that the idea was to create a platform for them to interact with each other and give feedback to the ministry for effective decisions.
He said that the ministry had got a budget for the controllers and that it was the first of its kind in many years.
“We plan to give each controller N50 million to start and the case for improved budgetary provision will be made on the basis of what happen with what we have done.
“Before we do that, we have asked them to submit work plans on the roads in their territory that have problems and they have all complied.
“We have gone through them and that is why we are able to move to this level,” he added.
The Federal Controller of Works, Kaduna State, Mr Finbarr Zirra, commended the ministry for the initiative.
He said that the controllers would be better equipped to discharge their duties at the end of the training.
He said that the knowledge to be acquired would help the participants to achieve their goals, get value for money as well as accomplish government programmes.
