Presidential Council Hails NCDMB for Transparency, Efficiency, as Board Seeks Sensitisation of Petroleum Industry

The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) was on Monday in Abuja commended for maintaining first position among ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in the Half Year Executive Order (EOI) Compliance Report by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC).

Addressing a Management team from the Board, led by the Director Monitoring and Evaluation, Mr. Abdulmalik Halilu, the Special Adviser to the President on PEBEC and Investments, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, urged NCDMB to maintain its high standard of transparency and efficiency in its operations, having won the top position in successive rankings, with 81.48 per cent for January-June, 2022, 81.11 per cent for July-December, 2022, and 83.06 per cent for January-June 2023. 

She said the dual mandate of PEBEC is “to remove bureaucratic and legislative constraints to doing business and to improve the perception of about the ease of doing business in Nigeria.”

The PEBEC Chief Executive disclosed that all MDAs Reform Champions had to be invited to the Council Secretariat for briefing on reforms, which include Regulatory Reforms, Sub-national Reforms, Legislative Reforms, Strategic Communications, and Business Champion Reforms. 

In the EO1 overall performance ranking, Efficiency relates to an agency’s adherence to service delivery timelines, among other considerations, while Transparency has to do with an agency’s establishment and active use of a functional website and availability of detailed information on project/business costs, statutory requirements and customer service contact channels.

In their response, the NCDMB Management expressed appreciation to the PEBEC for its wide-ranging endeavours aimed at eliminating all forms of abuses and bottlenecks in service delivery by MDAs. The Director Monitoring and Evaluation, Mr. Halilu, also called on the Council to team up with the NCDMB to raise awareness in the oil and gas industry on reform-based trends and thus make the significant improvements in ease of doing business better appreciated. He further suggested the creation of “another level of awards to MDAs who are consistent with excellent in-service delivery to the Nigerian people.”  

At the interaction, the PEBEC Secretariat seized the opportunity to release its 2024 Outlook document which contains the basis of a 90-day Regulatory Reform Accelerator (RRA), which commenced in February 2023 and is slated to end on May 30, 2023. The accelerator focuses on urgently needed regulatory reforms across key Federal Government of Nigeria MDAs.