Tackle inefficient MDAs

A graphic measure of the abysmally low level of efficiency in the Nigerian public service played out in the results of a recent appraisal of 69 ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC).

In its latest Business Facilitation Act (BFA) Performance Report released at the tail end of last year, PEBEC unravelled how the MDAs are enabling the ease of doing business or otherwise in Nigeria through implementation of reforms, policies and public service delivery.

In the exercise, 17 of them scored zero, while some others scored marginally higher, and only a few showed flashes of passable efficiency.

The zero-scoring, failed agencies in the efficiency metrics are Bank of Industry, Trademarks Registry, Environmental Health Council of Nigeria, Federal Produce Inspection Service, Galaxy Backbone Limited, Industrial Training Fund, Joint Tax Board, National Identity Management Commission, National Insurance Commission, and National Bureau of Statistics. Others are the Nigerian Postal Service, Patent and Design Registry, Service Compact, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Nigerian Copyright Commission, Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, and Financial Reporting Council.

The report assessed the performance of the 69 MDAs between January and October 2025 on the scales of efficiency, transparency, responsiveness, and mystery shopping – a metric which uses real-life scenarios to test the compliance level of business-facing MDAs against their published Service Level Agreements (SLA) as mandated by the Business Facilitation Act 2022. Mystery shopping is a method where individuals pose as regular customers to evaluate a business’s service, product quality, and overall environment by reporting on their experience. The SLA is a formal contract between a service provider and a customer that defines the specific services, performance standards, responsibilities, and metrics for measuring success, along with penalties if the provider fails to meet expectations. Hence, the exercise was not based on arbitrary considerations but on statutorily defined service-delivery parameters.

Placed in clearer perspective, the exercise evaluated how effectively the MDAs – many of which are critical to the nation’s business space – represent the implementation outcome of the statutory transparency and efficiency requirements established under the Business Facilitation Act (BFA 2022), and within the context of the goals of the PEBEC as established in 2016. The BFA 2022 itself was signed into law in February 2023 by the late President Muhammadu Buhari, as part of the federal government’s strategy to consolidate and expand the country’s reforms in respect of fostering ease of doing business by removing the bottlenecks and bureaucratic constraints of doing business in Nigeria.

Since the release of the report almost a month ago, it appears the affected MDAs have moved on unscathed.

In that context, the failing MDAs constitute, in simple terms, a complement of waste pipes through which the nation’s patrimony is drained. Respective leadership of these MDAs should speak out because they have questions to answer. Why are they underperforming? Those among them that have sources of generating revenue internally, what are they doing with it? Those that rely on the federal government for subvention, are they not getting it? Are they being underfunded? Are they being sabotaged by external factors? The chief executives should speak to Nigerians to justify their being in office.

It needs to be recalled that prior to the current dispensation, several administrations had conducted series of reforms over the years to re-invent the nation’s public service, given its strategic role in delivering the dividends of governance to the citizenry. This is even as, often, the results have not matched expectations.

For instance, there was the Chief Jerome Udoji Public Service Reforms exercise of 1974, whose outcome was modest, even as it left much to be desired. Then was the Professor Dotun Philips Public Service Reform exercise of 1988, which also ended up with sub-optimal outcomes. In 2006 came the Integrated Payroll Payment Information System (IPPIS) for tackling the syndrome of ghost workers in government service. Then came the Stephen Oronsaye 2012 reform proposal, whose recommendations have been difficult for any administration since then to actualize. Then, in 2015, the incoming administration of President Muhammadu Buhari launched the Treasury Single Account (TSA) to streamline revenue collection by the government.

In the same vein have been several other reform initiatives and exercises to change the character and narrative of the nation’s public service, each with its unique level of success. Currently, there is another ongoing reform exercise in the public service under the auspices of the current Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Didi Walson-Jack, which focuses on digital transformation, performance culture, and modern governance.

To further accentuate the point offered by the backdrop of the foregoing review of past reform exercises, the zero-scoring MDAs constitute the face of the archetype of the dysfunctional state of governance in Nigeria, and it dictates that something drastic needs to be done to them by President Bola Tinubu.

More pointedly, with the organizational impotence by these zero-scoring agencies, they remain incompatible with the dispensation of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the President.

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