The Special Duties Department (SD) was created by the office of the OHSCF vide circular No. HSCF/CMO/EMO/243/17 dated 11th March, 2014. It comprises of three (3) Units, which hitherto the creation of the department, report directly to the Permanent Secretary as follows:
- Travel and Protocol Units
- Anti-Corruption And Transparency Units (ACTU)
- Stock Verification Unit
FUNCTIONS OF THE DEPARTMENT
- Assisting the Permanent Secretary to provide line supervision and general management to all the staff of the Ministry and its Parastatal and Agencies.
- Represent the Permanent Secretary in certain functions.
- Executive-assigned project for the Permanent Secretary.
- Manage high level stake holder access to the Permanent Secretary.
- Provide support in times of leadership transition in the Ministry.
- Help the Permanent Secretary to manage his/her schedule to ensure that his/her activities follow espouse priorities.
- Co-ordinate the Permanent Secretary‘s response to emergencies.
- Scheduled all staff meeting and briefings involving the Permanent Secretary.
- Co-ordinate the daily briefing session of the Permanent Secretary`s official schedule.
- Monitoring Implementation of Capital/Constituency projects.
- Liaison with National Assembly.
- Manage assigned direct reporting units on behalf of the Permanent Secretary, e.g ACTU, Stock Verification and protocol.
- Assist the Permanent Secretary, as required, to formulate and articulate his/her leadership agenda for the Ministry.
FUNCTIONS OF THE UNITS
TRAVEL AND PROTOCOL
The unit is all embracing covering a wide range of activities of the Honourable Minister, Permanent Secretary, and other staff of the Ministry. Some of the function includes:
- Honourable Minister movement and itinerary
- Movement and itinerary of Top officers
- Courtesy call and official meetings
- Passport and Visa procurement
- Travel arrangement
- Hotel Reservation
- Reception
- Planning, Coordination of all protocol functions
- Liaising with foreign affair ministry, embassies and state house
- Attendance of all official functions of the Ministry such as press briefings, dinner/cock-tail parties etc.
- Provision of airport reception for officials of the Ministry and guests
ANTI- CORRUPTION AND TRANSPARENCY UNIT (ACTU)
The Anti- Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU) of the federal ministry of Science and Technology was inaugurated on the 13th April, 2017 by the Independent and Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) with the Deputy Director, Special Duties as Chairman and 9 other members representing various Departments.
The function of ACTUs includes:
- Educate and enlighten the public on Corruption and related offences
- Monitor Budget Implementation in MDAs
- Promote Ethics and Integrity through enforcing compliance with Ethical Codes in MDAs
- Conduct preliminary/ administrative Investigations when necessary
- Undertake the study and Review of Operational system of MDAs to improve transparency and accountability and
- ACTUs is to represented in Junior Staff Committee (JSC), Senior staff Committee (SSC), Public Procurement Committee( PPC) and Technical Board Evaluation Committee (TBEC) as observer only to enhance transparency of the various committees in the discharge of their duties.
STOCK VERIFICATION
Stock Verification Unit is a watch dog of the Ministry, in ensuring check and balance in the activities of the Ministry, by verifying supplies, works and services,
The function of Stock Verification Unit includes:
- Prepayment checking of supply, works and services at the point of delivery
- Post payment checking of stores at least twice in a year
- Carries out price analysis to equip staff of the unit in ascertaining the price quantity and quality of items supplied
- Carries out inventory of office, furniture and equipment yearly to ascertain their condition and movement
- Ascertain asset and evaluate state and the condition of motor vehicles, plants and equipment and
Act as member of board of survey to furnish the board with prices of items for boarding.