The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) has released the report on the 2024 Half-Year transparency and efficiency compliance on ease of doing business in Nigeria.
Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, the Special Adviser to the President on PEBEC & Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole explained that from January to June 2024, the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) were ranked in order of their compliance in providing services in an efficient, timely, and customer-friendly manner.
“At this point, I would like to specially commend the top three MDAs in particular order; the Nigerian Content Development Management Board (NCDMB) with an 80.1% score, the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) with a 78.2% score, and the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) with a 74.8% score.
“Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the number of MDAs that scored above fifty per cent (50%) in their efficiency compliance increased from eight (8) MDAs in the 2023 Half-Year report to twenty (20) MDAs in 2024 Half-Year report”.
She stated that while significant improvement has been made by the MDAs, “this 2024 Half-Year report spotlights the urgent need for MDAs to strengthen their efforts on high-quality service delivery to rapidly improve the productivity and competitiveness of Nigeria’s business environment.
“A key learning from this year’s half-year report showed that the 90-day Regulatory Reform Accelerator (RRA) played a critical role in driving the performance of MDAs in the half-year compliance report. However, a key observation was that MDAs who showed consistency with the monthly Transparency & Efficiency reports were able to better deliver the Reform
Accelerator.
“While we acknowledge the hard work and progress made by the MDAs in delivering critical services to the business community, the business climate, both locally and globally, continues to experience turbulence, characterized by uncertainties and rapid changes” the SA noted.
Jumoke further explained that in May 2017, “the Executive Order 001 (EO1) on the Promotion of Transparency and Efficiency in the Business Environment was signed marking a pivotal milestone towards instituting a culture of transparency and efficiency in public service delivery.
“Building on that, in February 2023, the Business Facilitation (Miscellaneous Provision) Act 2022 was signed into law, codifying the EO1 directives.
“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 using an efficiency and transparency methodology, weighted at 70% and 30% respectively” the SA stated.
According to the report, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and Nigeria Customs Services (NCS) secured the fourth and fifth positions, scoring 73.9% and 73.2%, respectively.
“The Efficiency scale measures on MDAs are adherence to service level agreements (SLAs), costs and procedures, one government directive, and default approval while Transparency is assessed based on the publishing of standardized procedures, timeliness, service fee and customer service contact details on the MDA’s website and digital media channels,” Oduwole stated.
