President lauds Civil Service for resilience

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has lauded the Ghana Civil Service for demonstrating resilience, professionalism and dedication to their duties amidst the outbreak of a pandemic.

He said it was the right time to show gratitude to the service adding that in the heat of the outbreak of COVID-19, which left one of the most difficult periods in the history of mankind, the Civil Service did not relent on its responsibilities.

He said this through a virtual broadcast as he delivered his speech at the Civil Service award ceremony held in Accra to climax the 2020 Civil Service Week celebrations.

Speaking on the theme; “Civil Service and Private Sector Synergy: A National Development Imperative", he said the partnership between the public and private sector in recent times was most needed to facilitate economic growth.

He said the basic philosophy of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) of which he belonged was anchored to partnership between the private and public sector and had not changed over the past 70 years.

“We have never wavered in our belief that giving an enabling environment, the ingenuity and sense of enterprise of the Ghanaian will enable us build a strong powerful economy which will deliver a good dignified standard of living to our people,” he said.

The President said the government had worked hard to create an enabling environment for the private sector to flourish by the maintenance of high rates of growth, reduced inflation and lending rates, the stability of the currency and implementation of policy to formalize the economy.

He said the release of exceptional budgetary allocation to the office of the Civil Service had enabled the service to restructure and embarked on significant human resource development.

“I have been told that some 80 per-cent of all outstanding promotions dating as back as 2012 had been cleared and the remaining 20 per-cent are currently being worked on,” he said.

He said these and more developments by the government would help stimulate public and private sector growth to compete for both domestically and internationally and enable job creation.

He thanked the Service for the support given to the government towards realising all of its flagship programmes and looked forward to receiving a much greater support from them in 2021; “when Nana and the NPP gets four more to do more for them”.

Mr Patrick Nomo, Chief Director, Ministry of Finance, who was crowned the overall best performed Chief Director for the year 2019 said over the past 35 five years he had worked in the public sector from being an Assistant Accountant which was the lowest position to a Chief Director and subsequently winning the award.

He said the award was not to him alone but a joint achievement of workers at the Ministry of Finance.

He expressed his gratitude to God almighty, his wife and Children, the Service and all who had contributed to his success.

Other awards were given to distinguished Civil Servants who had also served the nation in their line of work over the past year.