Senate Committee on National Planning has recommended Centre for Management Development (CMD) for public office holders, saying that it is capable of providing some of the administrative trainings they often go to undertake abroad.

Chairman of the committee, Zaynab Kure, expressed the committee's view during a tour of the centre's facilities in Lagos on Thursday as part of its oversight function.

Kure's recommendation is coming on the heels of a recent controversy concerning the purported plan, now rested, by state governors to embark on a short training programme at Havard University in United States.

She said the committee believed that there is enough patronage of the centre's programmes from the private and public sectors and stressed that political office holders need to be encouraged to take advantage of the centre's programmes that cover a wide range of courses aimed at enhancing management skills, especially for middle and top cadres of administrative staff.

Director-General of the centre, Dr. J.Y. Maiyaki, said over 2,000 trainers pass through the centre annually, adding that it has been exploring variety of ways to assist manpower development in both the public and private sectors.

According to him, the centre is currently involved in the Public Sector Management Training Programme (PSMTP) in Ghana, a programme sponsored by the African Capacity Building Fund (ACBF) in collaboration with the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).

Maiyaki explained that in 1999 the centre ran Executive MBA and PGD programmes in Banking and Finance, Management and Accountancy as well as MSc in Public Relations, but suspended the programmes in 2002 following Federal Government's directive on satellite campuses, adding that the centre had also been at the forefront of the campaign against the proliferation of campuses.