By Perpetua Onuegbu
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development is set to enter into collaboration with the Institute of Directors’ Centre for Corporate Governance to provide training and capacity building for its staff.
The move is intended to optimise the processes of both the Ministry and its agencies and bolster their outlook by entrenching professionalism and enhancing their corporate governance.
This was revealed by the Honourable Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Mr Ahmed Dangiwa during a courtesy visit by the institute to the Minister.
The Minister underscored the important role the institute plays in enhancing professionalism in the workplace, promoting good governance practices, and boosting performance across sectors.
“We would leverage your capacities and resources to boost professionalism and effective leadership at all levels within the Ministry and Agencies towards powering our Action Plan for Housing and Urban Development.
We hope that we can do this through periodic retreats, seminars, brainstorming sessions to empower our professionals with the right leadership techniques” he said
” In line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu, we intend to build a Ministry of Housing and Urban Development that embraces the performance-driven culture of the private sector so that we can more effectively deliver homes and livable communities for Nigerians,”
He also noted that the most important resource in any establishment is the human resource, and all personnel must be empowered with the requisite skill sets, mentality, and attitude to bring about positive change and transformation.
He added that the IoD is a trusted resource that has been instrumental in boosting efficiency for optimal performance across organisations in Nigeria.
“The ideals that the Center promotes align seamlessly with the fundamental principles that underpin effective and responsible leadership. This includes Integrity, Meritocracy, Professionalism, Accountability and Probity, Customer Centricity and Teamwork”
Recalling his period as the Managing Director/Chief Executive of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, Dangiwa stated that IoD was a strong partner and insightful resource during the series of Board Management Retreats and Capacity Building/Training programs that was carried out at FMBN
“During these sessions we sought to build a new culture of high performance that delivers results even while confronting systemic and institutional bottlenecks.
I believe that the robust contributions and input from IoD helped to bring clarity to our initiatives and increase staff capacity.
All these resulted in the historic performance that I was able to lead the Management to record within our five years at the Bank.
“I am proud to say that what we achieved in five years at FMBN was far more than what previous managements had achieved in 25 years before we came on board,” he said.
On his part, leader of the delegation and Chairman, Board of Governors of the Institute, Mr Urum Eke noted that the purpose of the visit was to offer useful tools to the Ministry and seek the Minister’s intervention in ensuring that agencies such as the FMBN and the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) take advantage of their expertise to position themselves for growth.
“It is clear to us that, with respect to housing and urban development, government does not have the wherewithal to do the massive work that is needed.
“What that means is that you will certainly be doing more of Public-Private Partnerships. However, no private sector partner will put his money in a parastatal, agency or company where there is no strong corporate governance; that is clear.
Corporate governance is at the root of corporate performance, so we want to urge you to prevail on the agencies under the Ministry to take advantage of what we offer” he said. (NAN)