The Nigerian Content Development Management Board (NCDMB) has emerged as the most efficient and transparent MDA in Nigeria within the first six months of 2024, getting a mean score of 80.1 percent, thereby outperforming 39 other Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government that were assessed during the period, the 2024 Half-Year Transparency and Efficiency Compliance Report of the Federal Government shows.
The ranking was done by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), which was set up with the mandate of removing bureaucratic and legislative constraints to doing business as well as to improve the perception about the ease of doing business in Nigeria.
The half-year 2024 assessment was carried out through the ReportGov.NG, which is an interface accessible either via https://reportgov.ng or the Google Play Store and iOS store. The platform currently hosts 52 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), all of which have integrated with the portal.
“These MDAs are all bound by a Service Level Agreement SLA endorsed by the Federal Executive Council (FEC). According to this SLA, all lodged complaints must be resolved within 72 hours. PEBEC has conducted training sessions for the representatives of these diverse MDAs, to improve the skills of MDA personnel in complaint management and administration,” the report states.
Since 2018, the PEBEC Secretariat has tracked and ranked the implementation and compliance of MDAs with the directives contained in the BFA 2022, based on monthly reports submitted by each MDA and assessed against a set of pre established methodology. The MDAs have made progress in adhering to service level agreements (SLA) and advancing digitization efforts.
“However, bureaucratic challenges and issues with consequence management persist. The outlook for efficient public service delivery remains positive, given this administration’s commitment to creating a conducive business environment. There has been significant improvement in the overall rankings, with over 60% of MDAs now scoring above average, compared to the previous report where only 30% achieved above-average scores,” the report adds.
NCDMB was followed by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) which scored 78.2 percent; and the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Services (NAQS) which scored 74.8 percent; the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) that scored 73.9 percent, and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) that scored 73.2 percent.
Others in the excellent grade include the Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), 72.6 percent; Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), 71.8 percent, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), 70.2 percent, and the Federal Competition & Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), 70.0 percent.
The two major criteria for ranking the MDAs include transparency and efficiency in public service. The report further shows that any MDA that scores between 70 percent and 100 percent exhibits full compliance; 40 percent to 69 percent translates to low level of compliance, while 0 percent to 39 percent exhibit high incidence of non-compliance.
On efficiency compliance ranking, NCDMB is the only MDA with a score within the full compliance range. Twenty-six other MDAs were ranked within the low level of compliance range, while others were within the range of high level of non-compliance.
The worst performing MDAs are the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority (OGFZA), Bank of Industry (BOI), Joint Tax Board (JTB), Trademark Registry (Trademark), National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and Servicom, with their scores ranging from 0 percent to 2.5 percent.
On transparency rating, twelve MDAs were rated 100 percent, 4 were rated 97 percent, while 8 scored between 92 percent and 95 percent.
Eight other MDAs scored between 74.5 percent and 87 percent, thus bringing the number of MDAs within the full compliance to 32 under this criterion.
Six MDAs scored between 46.4 percent and 65 percent and they are the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA); PENCOM; NDLEA; Servicom, NSDC and NAMA.
The worst performing MDAs under this criterion are the Trade Registry which scored 32 percent and the National Broadcasting Commission that scored zero percent.
