Nigeria’s Public Service has begun to phase out its paper-based Annual Performance Evaluation Report (APER) in favour of a digital system.
The APER assesses employees’ work ethics, skills and capabilities for the suitability of promotion and training. It has been in its current form since 1979 and observers have dismissed it as having little value in the 21 st century.
To many, the system is the bedrock of poor performance and ineffectiveness that has plagued the Public Service for years.
The APER system is also claimed to suffer from inefficient feedback mechanisms because it is not a continuous process, has poor objectivity, is cumbersome and its measures are not always quantifiable.
Head of Service of the Federation, Folasade Yemi-Esan acknowledged the APER’s shortcomings.
“We are looking for a new Performance Management System that will replace the APER that has been used for years and has quite a number of limitations,” Dr Yemi-Esan said.
“One of the limitations we have seen is that it doesn’t really give any sense of reward for what the officer has done. They just sit down and fill the forms themselves, with no clear objectivity and there is no appraisal whatsoever with the APER form.”
She said that under the paper-based APER “papers often went missing and no proper records were kept”.
The new Performance Management System would be a digital system and every officer would have to go online and fill in his/her target for the year.
“At the beginning of every year, the officer will agree with his or her immediate superior on a target based on the Departmental strategy as well as the national strategy. So, the officer will be able to relate to the national goals,” Dr Yemi-Esan said.
Abuja, 18 November 2020
