Lessons in/from public sector communications (2)

I started this series two weeks ago with lessons from the Minister of Works and Housing, Tunde Fashola.

This second instalment looks at the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi’s style. His signature initiative is Nigeria’s Rail Modernization Program, which seeks primarily to develop a national Standard Gauge Rail network for Nigeria.

The 186km line between Abuja and Kaduna was completed in 2016, the 158km line between Lagos and Ibadan is nearing completion (was flagged-off in March 2017), the 320km line between Itakpe in Kogi State and Warri in Delta State has just been completed, more than 30 years after construction commenced. Now work is scheduled to commence on the Ibadan-Kano line, before the end of 2020.

There’s perhaps no government project effort that I’ve paid closer attention to than this one.

Pre-Covid, Minister Amaechi conducted a monthly inspection tour of the Lagos-Ibadan Rail service, this administration’s flagship standard gauge rail project. I’ve been on a few of those, and found them very enlightening.

If you’re a public official working on a project, you need to work hard to bring attention to whatever your primary project is. As a senior public official, it is hard to generate publicity about your work without taking the lead — telling and showing.

That’s what the monthly tour taught me. It sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s actually rare to find public officials dedicating regular time to publicly engaging with their projects. Key words there: ‘regular’, ‘publicly.’

Amaechi’s style in this regard is very public. He takes the monthly tour, with a battery of journalists — beat reporters, bloggers, TV crews, and newspaper columnists. And, from time to time, senior Government officials — including State Governors. (This is especially impactful because Governors are natural media magnets; they always have their own media crews in tow, which allows for further amplification of the news).

Minister Amaechi’s Tours include stops at every station: he hops off the train with his entourage, and spends time inspecting the ongoing work, asking very pointed questions from the supervisors and teams on site. Queries about the pace of work, about the unfulfilled assurances from the previous tour. All of the accompanying journalists are listening, filming, writing, paying attention.

Perhaps a caveat to be added is that naturally, not every kind of project lends itself to this kind of style. It’s great for infrastructure projects, obviously.

It accomplishes multiple things, it keeps you informed about the project — first-hand insight — and also throws up opportunities for communications and public engagement. ‘You can’t properly communicate what you’re not adequately aware of’, is a basic rule of communications.

Which leads me to a very important point about public sector communications: something I call, ‘Showing the workings’.

It’s not enough to launch or flag-off a project, and then go quiet while awaiting the full realisation of the project. No. The workings must be shown, constantly and in a straightforward manner. Let people see how its progressing — or not progressing. Show them the setbacks and challenges, as they’re unfolding.

If there’s a disruption to a previously highlighted schedule or timeline, disclose it. Never one to mince words, the Minister is typically very upfront about his views on the pace of the project.

Considering that virtually all large-scale government projects will suffer delays and setbacks — there are a million angles from which these could emerge, from within the project itself or from external factors — it makes sense to not shy away from managing the expectations of the public. I now seriously consider Expectations Management a critical component of public sector communications.

If you tell people a project is scheduled for completion in December, and there’s a disruption along the line, the best thing is to make that clear as soon as is practicable. So it is perfectly acceptable, and even recommended, to, in October, come out to say, guys, we did say December, but we’ve seen this or that setback, and so December is no longer looking feasible.

Another recent example of ‘Showing the Workings’ in demonstration is from the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika. On March 12, he announced that the reconstruction of the Enugu International Airport Runway would be completed “before Easter 2020.”

Only a few weeks later, Covid-19 disruptions struck. On an inspection visit at the end of March, the Minister announced as follows:

EXCERPT: “Considering that the construction workers have downed tools owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Government, hereby, officially announces suspension of procurement. The work would have been completed in six to seven days, but the workers left to be with their families in view of the social distancing,” the Minister stated.

And then on June 1, he announced a resumption:

This for me is ‘Showing the Workings’ in practice. It goes hand-in-hand, of course, with regular site visits. There’s definitely a lot of room for greater honesty and transparency about the pace of progress of the implementation of government policymaking.

In my view, the response when a project suffers delays (I’ve been spending a lot of time studying project timelines in Nigeria, and it’s almost a given that there will be a daily, sadly) should not be silence or reticence, but instead transparency. And, sometimes, blame must be apportioned, and/or responsibility taken, for delays.