Precious Nwonu, Enugu
The Federal Government has warned Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to improve their performance and demonstrate accountability, saying public institutions must deliver measurable results and better services to Nigerians and businesses.
The Director-General of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), Princess Zahrah Mustapha Audu, gave the warning during a high-level strategic engagement and press briefing organised by the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja.
According to a statement issued on Friday, the meeting, themed “MDA Data Collection & Harmonisation,” brought together government stakeholders to review institutional performance, data management and compliance with ongoing reforms.
Audu presented findings from the Business Environment Enhancement Programme Accelerator, which assessed the implementation of reforms across federal government agencies.
The assessment showed that 16 MDAs had fully implemented the reforms evaluated. However, recent mystery shopping exercises revealed that some agencies became less responsive after active monitoring ended.
The findings raised concerns about the sustainability of reforms and whether some institutions could maintain the required standards without regular supervision.
Addressing heads of MDAs, Audu said agencies would remain under scrutiny through ongoing mystery shopping exercises, a live performance tracker and the forthcoming end-of-year Business Facilitation Act Compliance Ranking.
She explained that the monitoring mechanisms were designed to track institutional performance, identify gaps in service delivery and ensure that agencies fulfilled their reform commitments.
The statement noted that the Federal Ministry of Finance was placing greater emphasis on the performance, responsiveness and reform compliance of government agencies in its dealings with them.
It added that the approach reflected President Bola Tinubu’s stated zero-tolerance stance on non-performance and the government’s commitment to ensuring that public institutions produced measurable results.
The Business Facilitation Act provides a framework for improving Nigeria’s business environment by making government processes more efficient and responsive.
PEBEC said it would continue to use mystery shopping, real-time digital tracking, compliance assessments and data-driven monitoring to strengthen transparency and identify areas where reforms were not being properly implemented.
The council stressed that agencies would be expected to demonstrate tangible improvements, noting that merely meeting requirements on paper was no longer sufficient.