Buhari, minister, 10 others win COVID-19 management excellence award

As reactions continue to trail the use and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccine, Higher Education Leadership and Policy Project (H.E.L.P) has recognised President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbanjo, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and 6 others for their rapid responses to the pandemic management efforts, humanitarian and economic interventions.

Announcing the award in statement, the Chairman Project Management Organising Committee, 2020 Lead Advocate and Chief Executive Officer of H.E.L.P, Elder Ayodele Thomas, said the Higher Education Leadership and Policy Project; Castleberry Project Management Consulting Limited; Legal Project Management Resource Enterprises; and Essential Development Enterprises, jointly presented the Project Management Achievement Awards (PMAA) based on the 2020 Projects-Program Impact Studies (PPIS).

According to him, the impact studies dwelt on developments that mostly affect and tie the stakeholders together, first as citizens and generally as stakeholders in the Nigeria Project.

“Though the nation’s economy was severely impacted by the pandemic, the poor performance of most households as observed in the studies was as a result of the attendant effects of lockdown on Micro, Small and Medium scale Enterprises (MSMEs) that constitute the nation’s economic power house.

“Though the troubling trend caused the nation to slide into economy recession, it also opened up new vistas of opportunities to overcome the pandemic shockwaves with great quality of national resilience. It is firmly believed that annexing these opportunities at this critical time would, in the end, assist in re-inventing the nation’s public institutions to positively respond to and, most importantly, embrace strategic project economy as a new model towards weathering unexpected economic storms and making progress notwithstanding any unexpected turbulence.

“PMAA 2020 recognises the fact that within months of the pandemic in 2020, the entire nation’s focus changed faster than anticipated.

“Hence, the standard methodology could not at this time apply to evaluate effectiveness of public agencies’ project-program implementation/impacts and their respective Institutional Project-Program Management Maturity Model.

“In line with the above, the PMAA awards selection process relied upon submissions collated from well-structured conversations and interviews with selected Project Management Subject-matter Experts, Public/Private Sector Managers, Entrepreneurs, the Academia, Civil Societies, the industry and other stakeholders including religious bodies, various socio political and economic stakeholders and the general public,” he said.

Among those awarded, President Buhari won the Federal Award while Prof. Osinbajo won the Project Leader of the Year 2020 award for effective coordination of various government public support schemes and the implementation of the Economic Stimulus Interventions and Sustainability Plan (ESP) across various sectors.

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Mr Boss Mustapha also got the award of Project Manager of Year 2020 for regular, consistent effective communications of PTF activities.

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