‘Civil, public servants must be guided by honesty, integrity’

Civil and public servants have been urged to be guided by honesty, integrity in their daily work to check corruption in the public sector, to help promote the development of the country.

The Country Director of Emerging Public Leaders (EPL) Ghana, Mrs Juliet Adime Amoah, made the call in Accra yesterday during the third graduation ceremony of EPL Ghana Public Service Fellows.

In all, 16 young public servants who have undergone two years of leadership training at the Civil Service Training School, under the EPL Ghana Emerging Public Leaders programme, graduated and were also inducted in the EPL Alumni Network.

The graduands are employees of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation and Office of the Vice President.

The EPL programme was an initiative by the EPL Ghana four years ago, to help empower the next generation of civil service professionals, to deliver efficient and effective public service to the citizenry. It was also being implemented in Liberia and Kenya.

Mrs Amoah explained that honesty and integrity were the hallmarks of change agents and civil and public servants should demonstrate samein the delivery of public service.

She said the country needed people who demonstrated professionalism in their work, and were not ready to cut corners or be influenced by money in their service delivery.

Mrs Amoah said so far 80 young civil and public servants had benefited from theEPL programme.

The Country Director of EPL Ghana said the third cohort of the EPL programme was implemented by the Office of the Head of Civil Service, National Service Scheme, Civil Service Training Centre, and funded by the Ministry of Finance, Mastercard, and Federated Commodities, Vlisco and Mulago and supported by MTN Ghana, Ecobank and Chartered Institute of Human Resource Management Ghana.

The Interim Executive Director of EPL Global, CarenWakoli, who delivered the keynote address, said EPL was basically to raise the new generation of young leaders who put integrity, honesty and the citizens at the centre of their work.

She said leadership was the cornerstone of any society and was right at the heart of sustainable development.

“The new graduands who are ethical and value-based civil and public servants would lead the change Ghana and Africa envisaged.

The Chief Director of the Office of the Head of Civil Service, Godwin Brocke, in his remarks said the training opportunities provided by the EPL Ghana programme had made significant difference to the capacities of the fellows.

He encouraged the graduands to put the training, mentoring, coaching and the skills and knowledge they had acquired into practice to drive change in their organisations.

A beneficiary of the EPL programme,Ms Juliana OhenebaOkorm, who works at the Office of the Vice President, expressed gratitude to EPL Ghana for the programme.

She said the programme had transformed them and built their capacities to become change agents in their various organisations.

BY KINGSLEY ASARE