In a recent report released by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), and the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) have emerged as overall top-performing agencies in compliance with the 2022 Executive Order.
The report which spanned January to June 2023, had the agencies ranked on the basis of efficiency compliance, which assesses their ability to provide timely, cost-effective, and customer-friendly services. Additionally, their transparency assessment was taken into account during the ranking process.
Vanguard reports that the PEBEC 2023 Executive Order Compliance Report assesses the level of implementation of the various executive orders issued by the government to facilitate ease of doing business in Nigeria.
The report, however, includes an evaluation of both federal agencies and state governments in their adherence to the directives outlined in the executive orders.
According to the report, the top five performing MDAs during this period are the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) with an impressive 83.06%, followed by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) at 82.85%, and the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) ranking third with 69.85%.
Others are: the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) secured the fourth and fifth positions, scoring 67.99% and 64.01%, respectively.
Addressing journalists during a stakeholder sensitization session with Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), held on Monday, in Abuja, the Special Adviser to the President on PEBEC and Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, stressed the need for checks in the MDAs as part of efforts to ensure complete compliance to the executive order.
She said the report fulfills the Council’s continued commitment to track compliance with the Executive Order on promoting Transparency and Efficiency in the Nigerian business environment.
She added that the reason PEBEC is closely monitoring MDAs is not only to facilitate easy access to public records but also to combat corruption in the country.
She urged the MDAs to leverage the findings in the report to deliver the much-needed improvement in transparency and efficiency of public service delivery to improve the Nigerian business environment.
She said: “The ease of doing business intervention is an enabler. This is where public and civil servants deliver the actual work and the PEBEC is a facilitator. We help them to track what they’re doing. We encourage them, we coach on areas. So, we make them understand the template we help them to operate their service levels, agreements, and everything is made public so the report is available.
“It’s a cumulative report. So, that means that agencies that have been consistent, are rewarded for that consistency and agencies that have been consistently negative in performance, they keep getting those zeros and that’s just there. There is no how we can help them.
“We also reward agencies who have improved so you have a section that speaks to agencies who are maybe not paying attention to EO1 Compliance in the past, but have moved up on some steps because it’s a monthly thing.
“The report that we released today is January to June 2023. This was even during election time, this was during a change of administration time, so the agencies that were able to stay consistent because government is a continuum.
“Those are the agencies that are really to become calm. They’re really to be praised for that level of concentration and diligence that regardless of what’s happening politically, government Is there public and civil servants are there to serve Nigerian businesses to serve Nigerians and to make it a progressively easier place to start and do business.
“As you know, the work that we are doing is to make it faster, cheaper for businesses to engage with public sector. We don’t have to come to an office four times to do the same thing. You don’t have to come phoning and they’ll say, this list is not complete; come today come tomorrow.
“This is also a way to checkmate corruption, because we’re looking at automation, we’re telling them automate your processes, so not NAFDAC, SON, CAC, FIRS you see we give a lot of credence to agencies that are using technology.”