Public Service minister calls for new inventions

Public Service minister Dalmas Otieno has called on public servants to be more innovative in order to help the government save money. The minister was speaking yesterday during the Kenya Public Service Innovations celebrations at the KICC. He said that public servants should find new and effective ways to serve the public.

He asked them to stop thinking individually but to think as a team and find better ways of doing their work. “You should throw away bureaucratic attitudes and do new things. We have a civil service that is least educated and among the people, no attempts have been made to learn new and better ways,” Dalmas said.

However, the minister was happy that many public servants have gone back to school to better their education. “We wish to be a globally competitive economy and only and only innovation will help us. It will help create jobs for the youth.” He said. He asked them to ensure that after every three months, they come up with something new.

He added that all ministry’s should have an innovation budget where money will be set aside for innovation purposes and all those who excel in innovation be rewarded. “If we don’t become innovative, there will be no savings, poor expenditure control and no growth in our economy.” He said. H e asked all those servants who do not have money to go back to school to go and apply from the Higher Education loans board.

KCA University Vice chancellor Prof Midamba, who was the motivational speaker at the celebrations, said Kenya is ranked position 89 worldwide in terms of innovations. Midamba said that the government should enable the people to create innovation opportunities and fund them. “Government should not be a large bureaucracy but we should ensure no Kenyan is left behind as far as innovation is concerned.” He said.

Public service Permanent secretary Titus Ndambuki said that the ministry of water and irrigation was ranked second  after submitting their innovation to the United Nations. “They are getting their award after emerging second in promoting gender response in public service. Dubai police emerged first,” he said.