As The Gambia’s civil service continues to battle with widening capacity gaps and threatening constraints, public servants from various government departments on Friday concluded a weeklong workshop on the way forward for the civil service.

The forum, with a central theme Reform and Modernisation of the Gambian Civil Service, was organized with funds provided under the auspices of Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation (CFTC).

Addressing the opening ceremony of the workshop, which ended on Friday at the five-star Kairaba Beach Hotel in Kololi, Mr. Ousman Jammeh, Secretary General and Head of the  Civil Service, said the overriding and the strategic objectives of the Commonwealth-funded workshop were inter alia, to critically look at some of the capacity constraints in the civil service.

He added: “The workshop is, among other things, organized to examine, analyze critically, substantive issues pertaining to the capacity constraints, both at the personnel and institutional levels in the public service, and in the process prescribe, administer and implement suitable and sustainable development policies and programmes that meet the standard of the modern world.”

Mr. Jammeh urged public servants and public institutions to play their roles efficiently and effectively in formulation of policies, allocation of resources and delivery of services.

He expressed government’s ‘commitment’ to a comprehensive public service reform in line with Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper II and the Millennium Development Goals.

He thanked the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation (CFTC) for their support in funding the forum.

For his part, Mr. O.G Sallah, Permanent Secretary at Personnel Management Office (PMO), underscored that civil service reform and its modernization will form the basis for social-economic development and, as such, will continue to be given high priority in government’s development initiatives.

“The need to keep government’s reform policies and programmes relevant to our poverty reduction aspirations and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals cannot be over-emphasized,” stressed Mr. Sallah who’s also the Chairman of MDI Board of Governors.

Meanwhile, participants used the five-day forum to dilate on pertinent issues such as compensation and benefits, institutional capacity factors as well as governance and management factors.