The popular adage in Africa which stipulates that one good term, deserves another is trite as in the case of the re-appointment of Dr. Kashim Yunusa Akor by President Muhammadu Buhari as the substantive Director-General of the National Productivity Centre (NPC).
His re-appointment is indeed well deserved because of the tremendous impact his first tenure had on the improvements of Nigeria’s national productivity and its sustainable growth.
The National Productivity Centre, which is one of the offshoot of the Federal Ministry of Labour, is mandated with the sole aim of ensuring the growth of the country’s productive level.
Since his reappointment two years ago, Dr. Yunusa Akor has been tirelessly doing a lot to improving the living standards of the citizens through improved productivity. The need for national productivity policies that is in tune with the trends in the modern world entrenchments which cannot be overemphasized has been the working motives of the director-general.
The improvements we see in the National productivity levels of the country is basically due to the agencies policy initiative which was deliberately implemented to enhance our productivity capacities. The agency today is in tune with the trend all over the world where governments makes deliberate efforts by creating policies designed in inculcating, determining, monitoring and stimulating citizens productivity and today Nigeria cannot be said to be an exception, thanks to Dr. Kashim Yunusa Akor.
The major focus of this enhancements of our national productivity is the improvements exceptionally in the living standards of all Nigerians.
All over the world, governments, workers and employers are united in their pursuits of enhanced productivity because greater productivity is the primary source of the improvements in the living standards of the people. Low productivity is an aberration because it is one of the root causes of the working poor phenomenon. People work long hours, often in the informal economy or in subsistence agriculture, but still do not even have enough to feed their families. So, the role of the productivity centre in creating policies to change this trend already depicts the importance of what Dr Akor is doing at the NPC.
Raising productivity and ensuring that the productivity gains are equitably shared between business owners and investors, higher profits and shareholders value and workers, higher wages and better working conditions which is of critical importance in efforts to reduce poverty is one of the most important achievements of the NPC and its director-general.
The virtuous circle of productivity, employments and developments can be fuelled through the re-investments of productivity gains into products and process innovations, plants and equipments improvements and measures to enhance the skills and improving the workforce is of major concern to Dr. Kashim Akor and he is seriously working on this policy today for our national sustainability.
To Dr Akor, productivity is measured on how efficiently resources are used. He knows it can be measured in terms of all factors of production combined: total factors productivity of our nation or in terms of labour productivity, which nowadays is defined as output or value added divided by the amount of labour used to generate that output.
The NPC through Dr. Yunusa Akor is therefore today working on policies and ways that would make our value added increasing towards growth and it is doing this by making sure that labor is working smarter, harder, faster, and with better skills. It is to the credit of the NPC, that today, governments, workers and employers are united in their pursuits of the national productivity goals and enhanced productivity because greater productivity is the primary source of sustainable route out of the working poverty and the basis and measures of competiveness in the global markets.
Employment is the primary source of income for the poor, increasing the productivity of the poor is also of utmost concern to the director-generals and therefore improving policies aimed at improving their employability and creating productive employment opportunities for them which is an important way to fight poverty is what the director-general is working assiduously on today.
The NPC today under the DG. Dr Akor is promoting our nation’s so called high road to productivity which seeks to enhance productivity through better working conditions and the full respects for labour rights as compared to the low roads which consists of the exploitations of the workforce.
The success of the DG of the national productivity centre can be attributed to his usage of the social dialogue tool which is crucial to all efforts aimed at improving productivity. Today, our story illustrates very well how social dialogue and collective bargaining have greatly impacted and improved productivity in all aspects of our national economy. This measure has ensured several major developments partners in the country supports the NPC’s efforts to raise incomes and profits, improve working conditions, ensure competitions and compliance with labour laws and enhance competitions through greater productivity.
The NPC today is centrally dedicated specifically to productivity and have many technical units created which contributes specifically to productivity enhancements in different ways. Skills developments, employment policy, enterprise developments, sectorial activities, labour administration and working conditions. In addition, the departments responsible for workers and employers activities are involved in productivity improvements programmes
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The people of Kogi state are proud today of their son, Dr. Yunusa Akor for the type of leadership he giving to the NPC. Some are of the views that they are seeing in him the qualities of the late Prince Abubakar Audu of blessed memory who has during his life shown leadership in all his life endeavours. Many again are of the opinion that if he keeps this tempo higher, the state’s continued search of a leader to recruit to face the symmetric and asymmetric warfare of its people would have ended.
– Musa Wada writes from Abuja.
