The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) has said the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) maintained an excellence streak in the efficiency and transparency compliance ranking scale among the other Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in the country.
The NCDMB was ranked the highest of 70.07 per cent.
This was contained in the overall 2022 Business Facilitation Act (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act performance results for the year 2023 which was released at the weekend by PEBEC.
Notably, the detailed analysis of the latest result covering January 2023 – December 2023 (BFA Compliance Report) showed top five MDAs with commendable performance among which are NCDMB 70.07 per cent, Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) 69.5 per cent,
Others are: Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) 65.1per cent, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), 65.04 per cent, and Nigerian Export- Import Bank, (NEXIM) 63.51 per cent.
Vanguard had previously reported that NCDMB still came tops when PEBEC released its 2023 Half-Year EO1 Compliance Report sometime in October 2023.
The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) was established in July 2016 by the Federal Government to oversee Nigeria’s business environment intervention with the dual mandate of removing bureaucratic and legislative constraints to doing business and improving the perception of the ease of doing business in Nigeria.
PEBEC, however, urged MDAs to take concrete steps to improve efficiency and transparency ratings before the end of the 2024 reporting period as only 10 MDAs out of 39 scored above 50 per cent.
“With only 10 MDAs scoring above 50% and a weighted average score of 34.87% across the 39 MDAs, strategic measures to enhance sector-specific metrics will need to be prioritized. These MDAs must take concrete steps to improve efficiency and transparency ratings before the end of the 2024 reporting period.
“Most importantly, MDAs should as a matter of urgency set-up BFA Implementation Reform Committees. These committees will be responsible for steering BFA implementation initiatives in the MDAs, accelerating the strides taken in promoting a culture of transparency and accountability.
“This will be in furtherance of the implementation strategies of the 8-point agenda of the Administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, designed to boost economic reforms for sustained inclusive growth across all sectors.
“We strongly urge the MDAs covered in this report to draw insights from empirical data and past BFA reports (since 2018) to drive essential improvements in efficiency and transparency” the organization added.
According to PEBEC, the high-performing MDAs demonstrated commendable performance in both efficiency and transparency through diligent adherence to their Service Level Agreements (SLAs) during the 2023 reporting year, adding that the overall performance of MDAs highlights the need for massive improvement in key BFA Compliance metrics.
Earlier, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, the Special Adviser to the President on PEBEC and Investment, noted that over the past seven years, PEBEC has consistently published Compliance Reports, providing an empirical analysis of the monthly reports from MDAs.
She said that an MDA’s EO1 performance score is based on Efficiency and Transparency measures, with a 70% to 30% ratio, respectively.
According to her, efficiency measures compliance with service delivery timelines and directives of the EO1, while Transparency is assessed based on website updates, online service portals, detailed service information, timelines, costs, statutory requirements, and customer service contact details.
