Bala-Usman: FG to Commence Quarterly Assessment of Ministries in 2024

Ugo Aliogo

The Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination, Hadiza Bala-Usman, has stated that the federal government would commence the quarterly assessment of respective ministries, in January 2024, as part of measures to have quarterly assessment of the performance of the ministries, which would culminate into an annual scorecard.

She also stated that by January, 2024 when the assessment would begin all ministries would have received their 2024 budget and would be able to clearly follow the roadmap that has been so defined within the context of their deliverables.

Bala-Usman, who stated this yesterday during an interview on TVC News Breakfast show, said before the January, 2024 quarterly assessment, there would be a cabinet retreat in the first week of November, which would have President Bola Tinubu and the cabinet in attendance, adding that at the end of the meeting, everyone would commit to the performance bond signed by each ministry.

She remarked that every minister and permanent secretary would sign the performance bond, which would detail what the ministries are expected to do within the 2024 one-year budget cycle.

She averred that the performance bond is what would be used to track the performance of the Minister, noting that citizen engagement is a key aspect of what they seek to achieve and ensuring that citizens are part of the assessments.

The former Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Managing Director further explained that for some of the clear submission around deliverables that are project based, they are going to deploy a software where citizens are able to report back on project-based deliverables that the federal government have committed to doing within the period of 2024.  

According to her, “We are going to look at the best mechanism that we will use in ensuring that there is a citizen accountability metrics relating to non-project-based deliverables. Those are the areas we are looking at having a full circle of accountability, meaning that within the government; we have our consequence management framework.

“The framework seeks to ensure that there are consequences for actions and inactions of Ministries, Department and Agencies of government, where they are unable to perform or deliver on deliverables that has been so agreed by themselves. It is important to note that there are other aspects of people’s deliverables that are tied to other sectors or MDAs, so our job is to ensure that we de-bottleneck those areas to the extent that a ministry for instance, has an area of its deliverable that is tied or has a direct linkage with another ministry.”

“So, our job is to ensure that we follow up with our sister ministry to ensure that we de-bottleneck those aspect of inter-relationship, to make sure that there is synergy and that your own deliverable is also being looked at while recognising other aspect of deliverable. But primarily, we have an enhanced monitory framework and we have an enhanced M and E deployment. We are also going to deploy the consequence management framework, which will clearly define what it is that will attract a non-performance in terms of the grading of the key performance indicator.

“We know that in certain instances, that there is lack of full understanding on the part of the citizen which is why within our deliverables we have also identified where each ministry is require to engage with sectoral stakeholders. Sectoral stakeholders are key to the deliverable of a particular ministry. There is need for stakeholders to be part of what you are delivering and the understanding of the policy position from each sectoral stakeholder is integral. We recognise that it cannot function in isolation of the larger citizen which is why there is a strengthened recognition of the role of citizens as it relates to policy conceptualisation, implementation and monitoring mechanism which we feel is very important, ”she explained.