By Obas Esiedesa, Abuja

The Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency, NEMSA, on Monday received the Golden Award from the Bureau for Public Sector Reform, BPSR, after its performance was rated 80.75 percent following the deployment of Self-Assessment Tool, SAT.

NEMSA, the technical regulator for the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry, NESI, deployed the SAT in September last year.

Presenting the report of the SAT to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in Abuja, the Director General of BPSR, Alhaji Dasuki Arabi said NEMSA performed above average in most of the parameters used in the assessment.

He rated the management system put in place at NEMSA highly, saying it was fit for purpose.

Speaking earlier, Special Assistant to the President on Policy and Coordination, Dr. Habiba Lawal said the Federal Government was determined to improve performance of the public service to meet the development needs of the country.

She noted that most of the development challenges faced by the country were due to weak performance of the public service.

Dr. Lawal said the SAT enables all public agencies to “assess their strengths and weaknesses and deploy the outcome of the self assessment as a management tool to create continuous improvement”.

On his part, the Managing Director/CEO, NEMSA, Engr. Aliyu Tukur Tahir explained that the deployment of SAT helped the agency to ascertain the constraints/challenges confronting NEMSA in its service delivery in the power sector.

“Based on the analysis of our Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threat (SWOT), the agency has been able to identify additional opportunities for improvement and continuous improvement. The Self-Assessment Tool was administered to a cross section of all categories of NEMSA staff who were encouraged to be very objective in their responses in order to get a proper diagnosis of the Agency’s performance in line with best practices”.