A team of at least 140 officials has been assembled to oversee and evaluate the performance of various federal ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) in anticipation of the inaugural assessment exercise scheduled for the end of this month.
The formation of this assessment team was announced during the commencement of the third technical retreat for delivery desk officers from federal ministries, held in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State, starting on Wednesday.
According to a senior official closely associated with the Central Delivery Coordination Unit, led by the Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination, Mrs Hadiza Bala-Usman, the appointed officials tasked with conducting the assessment hail from 35 different federal government ministries, departments, and agencies.
“It will involve a permanent secretary, directors of planning, and other officials, four each from 35 ministries. They are considering the modalities of the assessment, the key performance indicators, the reporting mechanisms, and all of those,” the official who did not want to be mentioned told one of our correspondents.
At the retreat, Bala-Usman echoed President Bola Tinubu’s words to participants when she warned that her principal would sack ministers who failed to perform their duties.
She noted that Tinubu was poised to deliver on his promise of making life better and easier for Nigerians.
Calling for the total commitment of delivery officers and directors of planning in ministries, Bala-Usman said, “We must understand that the President is very serious about his promises and that ministers will be assessed, and ministers will be dropped if they don’t perform.
“You must understand that as ministerial delivery desk officers, you are the engine room that will provide that feedback, constantly track ministerial progress, and report challenges and bottlenecks to the central coordinating and delivery unit.”
The presidential aide, who dove into the specifics, explained, “In the Ministry of Aviation, we will be assessing FAAN on customer experience at the airports; are the escalators, lifts, and conveyor belts functional?
“What are the consequences of a delayed time of departure for airlines? These are things that everybody can feel and see.
“When talking about agriculture, we want to see our index of fertiliser use per hectare grow because of the attendant investment that has been made in fertiliser interventions.”
On October 17, 2023, Bala-Usman said her office would begin a quarterly assessment of the performance of the 48 ministers (now 47) appointed by the President by January 2024.
She said January would be the best period to begin the exercise, as all the ministries would have received their budgets for the 2024 fiscal year.
“We’re looking to commence an assessment of the respective ministries in January 2024. We’re going to have a quarterly assessment of performance, which will culminate in an annual scorecard,” the former boss of the Nigerian Ports Authority explained in an interview on TVC.
She said the annual scorecard would be reviewed during periodic retreats, where performances would be assessed against key performance indicators.
The three-month period for the first evaluation will follow a three-day cabinet retreat for ministers and presidential aides, which was held from November 1 to 3, 2023, where ministers signed a performance bond with the President.
The bond signed by each minister and permanent secretaries detailed the deliverables each ministry plans to achieve within the 2024 budget cycle.
“That performance bond is what we’re going to use to track the performance of the ministers,” Bala-Usman had said.
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