The Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Alhaji Dikko Abdullahi, said that the service trained over 4,454 personnel on capacity building in 2014 to enhance service delivery.
Abdullahi announced this in Uyo on Monday in his opening remarks at a three-day training workshop for officers and men of the NCS.
The workshop was organised by the NCS, in collaboration with the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).
Abdullahi was represented by a Deputy Comptroller of the NCS, Wale Adeniyi.
The CGC said that the theme of the workshop – Strategic Communication for Effective Reputation and Change Management- was chosen to educate the younger generation of officers to deliver effectively.
Abdullahi said that the exercise was a continuation of the service training and retraining programme to empower the younger officers to take up responsibilities.
“It is obvious that they will deliver if they have good training; work in good environment, if they have the right exposure and if given the opportunity to put in practice what they have learned.
“In capacity building, a total of 4,140 officers were trained in different aspects of customs operations in Nigeria and a total of 314 officers were trained outside the country.
“The service has put in immense investment in capacity building in the last five years.
“This workshop records over 70 per cent participants of customs public relations officers with the rank of one and two star officers.
“This means that the service is building for the future and is also trying to build sustainability in the operations of customs public relations and image management, ”Abdullahi said.
He said that the good thing about the training was that the service was now embracing training that had core customs components.
Abdullahi said that Uyo training workshop was a continuation of the service training programme but with a different trend.
He said that “this time we are striking a strategic partnership with the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations”.
Abdullahi said that the essence of the presence of the media practitioners at the workshop was to bring them under a learning environment to share experiences among the officers and the press.
He said that beyond the workshop, NCS was trying to give partnership a new meaning with its stakeholders, academia, press and everyone that has something to do with it.
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