Assessing MDAs’ performance requires openness

The report is welcomed that the Federal Government is gearing up to assess its ministries, departments, and agencies on their respective performance within the one-year budget cycle from June 2023. It is a well-intentioned idea. Performance monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is a global best practice in organisations, irrespective of size, that seek consistent improvement to achieve objectives and overall goals. Indeed, M&E is even recommended for personal development and growth by those who desire.

Hadiza Bala Usman, Special Adviser on Policy Coordination to President Bola Tinubu had, in October last year said that her remit includes ‘quarterly assessment of performance which will culminate in an annual scorecard [of the MDAs]’. To this end, ‘every minister and the permanent secretary [will] sign a performance bond [including key performance indicators (KPIs)] with the president which will detail what they are expected to do within the one year 2024 budget cycle’ …[and] that performance bond is what we are going to use  to track  the performance  of [each]  minister’..  He added that besides ministries, ‘there is also an understanding of the deliverables expected of the MDAs of government’.

These are ideas that, on the face of it, support the school of thought that Mr. Tinubu is well prepared for the task of running Nigeria. However, there are questions that need to be raised (and addressed) about the procedure of this MDAs’ evaluation.

It is reported that the assessors will be constituted of personnel from the very MDAs to be assessed. ‘It will involve a permanent secretary, and directors of planning and other officials from each of the 35 ministries’, an unnamed government official is quoted to say. ‘Delivery officers’ within the ministries are to report on the implementation of presidential priorities and ministerial deliverables. That looks a bit strange for the simple reason that it fundamentally risks the compromise of honest and objective opinion. This point is important to note because, in this clime, the people are, for good reasons based on experience, deeply distrustful of the government. Not that this is peculiar to Nigeria; from the U.S. comes the saying that one should not believe a piece of information until it is denied by the government.

It is trite to remind that the ‘mass media’ is constitutionally empowered to ‘at all times’ assess the performance of government-and arguably, the only professional body so recognised. Section 22 states: ‘The  press, radio, television, and other agencies of the mass media shall at all times uphold the  fundamental objectives  contained in  this Chapter [II]  and uphold  the responsibility  and accountability of the Government to the people’.  Deriving from this therefore, it is reasonable to expect that the ‘mass media’ be represented in the assessment process.

But not only the mass media. The Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are, presumably, independent-minded parties interested in a transparent and accountable government. They need to be represented. Other relevant questions are: Is the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) involved in assessing the Ministry of Labour?  They need to be, so too the various professional, industrial and pressure groups in the education sector to comment on the government’s performance in the relevant area.

It will not be out of place to conduct an opinion survey within the IDPs camps that dot the federation on how well the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs is doing since the Tinubu government assumed power.

The overarching point to make is that the assessment process by the Hadiza Bala Usman team needs to be reworked to bring in other groups and benefit from other ideas outside the public service thinking.  How, for example, is the Ministry of Defence to be assessed on safety of lives and property in Nigeria? It will be interesting to know what the report card issued by government officials says by the KPIs. But surveys of citizens’ opinions across the country will also come useful.

The key performance indicators by which the MDAs are being assessed are not in the public domain. They should be. Nonetheless, the mass media and discerning groups and individuals can easily extrapolate some from the Agenda for a Better Nigeria document that President Tinubu personally signed and addressed to Nigerians. Commonsense measures such as the rate of killings and kidnappings across the country since June 2023 to date can be easily calculated against the same length of time the previous year.

Nigerians can easily calculate the regularity of power supply, the cost of living, quality of life (including health, feeding, education, productive work, electricity for  work and comfort), and other incontrovertible indicators to judge whether this government is living up its ‘primary purpose’ and constitutional obligation to the people. The assessment of the MDAs is to establish how well they are implementing ‘presidential priorities and ministerial deliverables’.

Concerning ‘presidential priorities’ the top four as can be deduced from Tinubu’s 80-page ‘Action Plan for a Better Nigeria’ are national security, economy, agriculture, and power. On the first priority, he acknowledges that ‘the fundamental responsibility of government is to protect the lives and properties of its citizens’. ‘Our administration will accelerate reforms [to build] a more robust re-energised armed forces. As such, we shall recruit, train, and better equip additional military, police, paramilitary and intelligence personnel’.

On the second priority, Tinubu regrets that ‘our economy is unhelpfully designed to export materials and import increasingly expensive finished products…’ He therefore promises that ‘under our government, our cities and towns will witness a level of industrial activity unprecedented in our nation’s history…we will improve existing industries and sectors…powered by today’s technology…’ He adds: ‘We will build an economy that produces more everyday items, both agricultural and manufactured goods…’ It is also stated that ‘the allocation of revenue  between  the federal  and state governments  will be adjusted  to give states  greater flexibility  to foster  grassroots  economic development.’

On power, the then incoming government promised to ‘immediately take the necessary steps to ensure that more of the power we already generate (8 MW) can be transmitted and distributed…’

These and more are documented promises freely offered by Mr. Tinubu in his campaign ‘manifesto’. Of course, these are to be implemented through the relevant MDAs of government that are under scrutiny now through the office of Hadiza Bala Usman.

Government, through these bodies and their functionaries exists purely to serve the public therefore; the criteria and process of assessment, as well as the scorecards of the MDAs must be made available to the Nigerian public.

So, assessing the MDAs requires openness. The reason is simple: whereas it is fit and proper that the government periodically measures its own performance vis-a-vis its deliverables, its findings should not be the final say. The people that government serves, as clearly implied in Section 14(2)(b) and other ‘fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy’ enshrined in the constitution ought to have the final say on how well their government is doing on their security and welfare. Nigerians alone can decide from experience of the past eight months if what they have is a motion- without- movement government. Or it is not.