Accra, Sept. 28, GNA - Government must accept its responsibility to deal effectively with the nation's collective interest through sustained public service institutions, Dr Papa Kwesi Ndoum, Minister of Public Sector Reforms, said on Wednesday.

He said as the nation approached 50 years of independence, the strengthening of public service institutions could be gained through sustained commitment to public sector reforms.

Dr Ndoum made the point in a lecture dubbed: "Public Sector Delivery Reforms" under a broad topic "Ghana in the Last 50 Years: Political and Institutional Reforms", organized jointly by the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration in Accra. He said although measures taken by the Government with the support of external assistance from the nation's development partners had been making encouraging impact, there had also been emerging noticeable evidence of widespread concern about declining efficiency and effectiveness of the Civil Service.

Dr Ndoum, who is also the President of the Millennium Development Authority, said the goal of reform efforts should be the development of greater administrative and managerial capabilities, including effective use of science and technology.

However, "the general experience is that in both developed and developing countries, the common trend in administrative reform efforts seemed to be in the direction of reorganization and structural changes as well as harnessing human resources for meaningful utilisation in the public services".

Dr Ndoum said it was because most of the reforms did not achieve as much despite their potentials to do so that the Ministry of Public Sector Reform was established in 2005.

He said current reform initiative provided challenges but also gave opportunities for making progress in reforms adding that the reforms were necessary if the Government were to meet its governance and development objectives, including creating an enabling environment for private sector development and service delivery.

He called for a vigorous support to the entire public sector reform programme to strength the nation's ability to meet its goal of becoming a middle-income country with a per capita income of at least 1,000 dollars in the next few years.