Omolara Akinwale
THE recent mid-term ministerial performance retreat of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, the second in series, provided yet a rare opportunity for government functionaries to re-evaluate their performances, and accurately project into the remaining days of the tenure and beyond. Perhaps, one of the major reasons the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has not been getting the right accolades it deserves for its achievements is because the administration does not really blow its trumpet loud enough.
The recent mid-term ministerial performance review retreat presented an opportunity for the president and his team to catalogue their accomplishments vis-à-vis the policies of the government and the ministerial mandates.
When underscoring the fact that his government strived to recover from the slowing down of the economy as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and the resultant lockdown, President Buhari, in his opening speech, noted that there were adjustments to policy approaches and methods of working to achieve the objectives of his government in the nine key priority areas.
Those nine listed priority areas are, to stabilise the macro economy, achieve agriculture and food security, ensure energy sufficiency in power and petroleum products, improve transportation and other infrastructure, drive indsutrialisation focusing on SMEs, enhance social inclusion and reduce poverty, fight corruption and improve governance as well as provide security for all citizens.
The president wasted no time to reel off a holistic overview of some of his government’s achievements, which included among other things, the establishment of InfraCo Plc in 2020, as a world class infrastructure development vehicle, wholly focused on Nigeria, with combined debt and equity take-off capital of N15 trillion, to be managed by an independent infrastructure fund manager.
He noted also that the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) was also established in 2020 with more than USD 1 Billion in funding and there was also the Nigeria Innovation Fund by the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), which was designed to address investment opportunities in the domestic technology sector: data networking, datacenters, software, Agri-tech, Biotech, and the likes. He listed the 11.9km Second Niger Bridge, 120 km Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, 375 km Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria- Kano expressway and the East-West Road as some of the efforts targeted at improving transportation in the country.
“Our administration has made tremendous progress on railway projects in the country. Upgrading of our railway network is being extended with the recent completion of the Lagos – Ibadan line. The Itakpe-Ajaokuta rail line, has finally been completed and commissioned after 30 years of its conception,” he said.
The Nigerian leader, however, reckoned that by signing the Petroleum Industry Bill, 2021, into law on August 16, 2021 and directing the implementation committee to complete the processes for the successful operationalisation of the act within 12 months, his government had put in place, a legal, governance, regulatory and fiscal framework for the Nigerian Petroleum Industry, and for the development of host communities.
An important takeaway from the programme was the content of a slide presentation that showed the performance indexes of corresponding ministeries against the priority areas in the context of the deliverables set for 2023. The slide tracked performances of government agencies in actualising set goals. While some of the policy projects are up and running, there were some that were yet to kick start or were not moving at expected speed due to specified conditions.
This provided the opportunity for those saddled with the responsibilities of implementation to identify where they stood, provided the national leadership with insight on situation and gave members of the public opportunity to track and understand development in various sectors of the economy.
It was against this backdrop that the retreat advised ministries to reprioritise and focus more on those deliverables that have the highest impact on respective priority areas that could be delivered by 2023, ensuring capacity, strengthening the PRS department in MDAs, while focusing on target setting, tracking and reporting.
The National Bureau of Statistics was also urged to expand their scope to include key outcome metrics that measured the impact of the nine priority areas, while ministries and their agencies were encouraged to set up mini delivery units to improve systems and process of tracking and reporting on their deliverables.
There is optimism that through the bilateral meetings and high-level engagements organised earlier in 2021 to sensitise leadership of all federal ministries on the new results framework and the performance management system, there were reliable evidence that MDAs had a better understanding and appreciation of how their ministerial mandates contributed directly to the priority areas and the possible impact of their activities on the lives of Nigerians.
According to him, “Overall, the total number of contracts, policies and briefs/notes approved by the FEC between November 2015 and August 2021 stand at 1,403, comprising of 878 contracts, 319 policies and 206 briefs/notes. The 878 contracts approved by FEC have mostly targeted the provision of infrastructure, geared towards enabling faster economic growth and development.
“In the same vein, the analysis also showed that the government remained focused on its cardinal responsibility of responsively addressing the myriads of needs and challenges of its citizens through the 319 approved policies initiated during the period.”
Speaking outside of the retreat, where he analysed the importance of the exercise, Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF) said,“The objective of the retreat was to remind ourselves of the three cardinal objectives of the administration: security, economy and corruption.
“I believe strongly that the objectives of the retreat have been achieved, even in terms of the deliverables; in terms of the comments we got and the inputs. The other component of it is that it was a Nigerian affair as the government brought in Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Akinwunmi Adesina and Amina Mohammed, to speak to participants.
“I can say that they did a good job with the retreat because it’s quite risky for a president to say people should come and evaluate him but that was what was done and it is an attestation of the quality of leadership he gives.”
The country’s recovery from the devastating effects of COVID 19 is hinged on the twin issues of vaccines and how the nation tackles debt concerns consequently, the Nigerian government must build world-class local pharmaceutical industries and be able to effectively tackle the production of therapeutic drugs and vaccines.
Nigeria must revamp its local pharmaceutical industry and launch strategic investments for local vaccine manufacturing. Africa should not be begging for vaccines; Africa should be producing vaccines. The African Development Bank will invest $3 billion in support of local pharmaceutical industries in Africa, including Nigeria.
Akinwale sent this piece from Lagos
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