The Senior Special Adviser to the President on Industries and Secretary to the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), Dr. Olajumoke Odukola has said that Nigeria is ranked among top 10 reforming countries in the world.
Odukola who was represented by an Associate Mr Ayo Ojeniyi said this in Abuja on Tuesday 27th of February during the Lunch Time Seminar hosted by the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, themed “Using ICT within the Public Service in the Ease of Doing Business to Enhance Public Access to Information”
The Senior Special Adviser to the President stated that Nigeria moved 24 places upward as against the anticipated 20 steps in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business index, recording a tremendous improvement from its preceding position.
She also reiterated that the present Administration is poised on creating business enabling environment which is coordinated through PEBEC, and that “PEBEC’s model aligns with global best practice, and includes a strong performance tracking element that ensures MDAs are accountable for reform implementation”
Oduwale further disclosed that Public access to information would ensure quality of access to and participation in government, and that every person who desires to know how government operates can do so with minimum effort and diligence, and that it would improve the standards of media reporting and investigation, as it reduces reckless rumours and improve due diligence in verification of facts.
In his good will message, the Acting Director General BPSR, D.I Arabi said that contrary to the spirit and intent of the Executive Order 001 on the Ease of Doing Business that majority of the MDAs do not have functional websites, working telephone lines and emails required to effectively and efficiently drive the implementation of the Ease of Doing Business initiative.
“Ideally, the MDAs websites are institutional means through which small and medium Enterprises, Indigenous and direct foreign investors could obtain valuable information, kick start processes to start and grow their businesses and investment and access services rendered by the government agencies”
Arabi further said that in an effort to mitigate the challenges created by those bottlenecks and in line with its mandate to initiate reforms and ensure full implementations of government policies and programmes, BPSR “midwifed” a Scorecard for websites of Ministries and Departments and Agencies {MDAs} of the Federal Government. He revealed that given the importance to Operationalization of the Executive Order the federal government has officially adopted the scorecard as an instrument of the State.
The Acting DG stated that a special collaboration has been enunciated between the Bureau and National Information Technology Department Agency towards realizing the goal of this initiative.
He, in addition disclosed that, the occasion is being leveraged upon to also seek the buy in and support of PEBEC to help drive the initiative with their wealth of experience.