Boss Mustapha Gives Buhari’s Administration Pass Mark

•Lists successes of APC-led government

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, yesterday accessed and gave pass mark to the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration

Mustapha, in a keynote address on the second day of the induction seminar of incoming governors, said on assumption of office by the outgoing administration, the government met a weak economy, but because of policies it introduced, it was able to turn things around.

He said, “This government assumed office in 2015, at a critical period in Nigeria’s contemporary political, economic and social history. After more than a decade of economic growth, the sharp and continuous decline in crude oil prices from mid- 2014, along with a failure to diversify the sources of revenue and foreign exchange in the economy, led to a recession in the second quarter of 2016.”

However, he said to address this, the administration launched a number of initiatives targeted at addressing challenges and radically altering the national economic trajectory.

Mustapha, said the first step was to prioritise three policy objectives: combating corruption, enhancing security and rebuilding the economy.

According to him, “As a short-term intervention, the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) for the 2016 Budget of Change was developed. Following the SIP, was the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), a Medium-Term Plan for 2017-2020 designed to restore economic growth.”

However, he explained that upon taking office for the second time in 2019, “we opted to approach things a little differently. A Policy, Programmes, and Projects Audit Committee (PPPAC) was formed by the President to examine the Administration’s performance during its first term and identify critical areas of attention for the next four years.”

Building on the PPPAC report, he said the administration in August 2019, committed to Nine Priorities that encapsulated its development aspirations and provided a basis for determining the policies, programmes, and projects of the government for the second tenure (2019 -2023).

“These priorities were designed to contribute towards achieving good governance that improves the quality of lives of citizens and sets Nigeria on the path of prosperity.

“To enable effective tracking of performance, the Nine Priority Areas were further disaggregated into Ministerial Deliverables which were signed onto by all Ministers and Permanent Secretaries as performance bonds with the President.

“Each of the Nine Priority Areas was also designed to foster collaboration among MDAs such that lead Ministries which contribute most significantly to a Priority Area are made to work with supporting Ministries towards achieving the expected outcomes.”

Accordingly, he said, ” My Office then set up the Central Delivery and Coordination Unit (CDCU) with the sole aim of tracking and supporting the implementation of the assigned Ministerial Deliverables in line with the Nine Priority Areas of our government.

“From 2019 till date, my office with the support of our technical partners has consistently organised Annual Ministerial Performance Reviews, to independently track and report on progress made towards the achievement of the Nine Priority Areas and to make necessary adjustments towards ensuring their delivery.”

He explained that an annual scorecard of performance was then produced from the exercise for the attention and action of the president.

He said this created a heightened culture of transparency and accountability in the entire system of government, ensuring razor-sharp focus on the delivery of agreed priorities which has led to effective delivery of services that our citizens most rightly deserve.

“I can confidently give you data on the status of governments policies, programmes and projects. We can also provide data on key sectors of the economy. I will not fail to acknowledge the role technology has played in making the entire process unified and seamless.

“In the health sector, for example, we began with 3,109,114 Nigerians covered by an approved Health Insurance, but by December 2022, the number had increased by more than 440 per cent to 16,797,451 Nigerians.

“Still in the health sector, we have seen the number of poor and indigent Nigerians enrolled under the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) move from zero in 2019, to 1,121,017 by December 2022.

 “In the education sector, the Federal Ministry of Education working closely with their counterparts in the states to increase enrolment through the Better Education Service Delivery for Al Program (BESDA), facilitated the construction of 59 model smart schools in 36 states and FCT; the establishment of 210 literacy centres in 110 Federal Government Colleges in the six geo-political zones and also facilitated the provision of a meal per day to primary 1-3 children in 21 states and FCT.

“To show the effectiveness of this strategy, we have verifiable data from National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) 2022 of an increase in completion rate at the Junior Secondary School from 55.83 per cent in 2019 to 58 per cent in 2021 and at the Senior Secondary School levels from 42.19 per cent in 2019 to 44 per cent in 2021.”

Speaking further, the SGF said: “In the digital economy sector, which is gradually becoming the lifeline of every economy, the government recorded an increase in broadband coverage across the country from 33.7 per cent in 2019, to 100 per cent coverage in 2022.

“This was achieved by the deployment of Starlink Internet Services across the country, which has helped bridge the existing internet connectivity gap across rural communities in Nigeria, where other network operators could not deploy their services.

“I must at this point acknowledge the states that made this great feat possible by enforcing the N145/Lm Right of Way (RoW) charge. I encourage you as new governors to prioritise this and make it one of your achievements in the first 100 days of your administration.”

According to Mustapha, “The multiplier effect on the economy is unimaginable. The NBS GDP 2022 Q4 Report reveals that, of the total N21.04 trillion real GDP figure, the ICT sector contributed 16.22 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2022, up from 14.07 per cent in the first quarter of 2020.

“4G penetrations across the country has also increased from 23 per cent in 2019, to 80.86 per cent and yet again this has been attributed to the increase in the number of users of the 4G technology in most states in the country.

 “Undoubtedly, we really can’t go very far without each other. In a bid to strengthen the culture of performance management and sustain the enormous gains achieved, the federal government issued Executive Order No 013 of 2022, to institutionalise the Central Delivery and Coordination Unit.”