Challenges of Productivity and Work Ethics for Local Governments in Nigeria

The Nigerian public service (including the local government service) has gone through series of reforms and restructuring since 1976. The main aim of these reforms/guidelines has been to overcome the challenges of development and hence strengthen and foster socio-economic improvements at the grassroots. Despite the various reforms at the local government level, not much has been achieved in terms of meeting the yearning of the grassroots people. Employees in most of the local government councils display very poor work ethics with concomitant implication for the survival of the local government administration. This challenge of negative work attitude seems to have been taken for granted in most academic discourse and in the various local government reform agenda. It is in this connection therefore that this paper attempts to examine the factors that affects work attitude among local government employees. Secondary data was used to examine the concept of work ethics to see how it impact on the productivity of local government employees. It was found that poor working condition; poor work infrastructure, poor remuneration, and inadequate motivation among others were responsible for the poor work ethics among employees of local government service in Nigeria. It was recommended among others that the general work environment should be made conducive and basic working facilities provided to adequately engage the sources of the employees in the local governments for increased productivity.