Ending Corruption, FG, ANEEJ, Others Meet In Abuja #OsazuwaAkonedo
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Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ has organised a road show in Abuja to demand end to poverty and corruption in Nigeria.
The road show held last week was part of activities to launch the Nigerian Open Contracting Portal, NOCOPO designed to streghten governance system and boost transperancy in public procurement process in Nigeria.
The launching have in atteandance; journalists representing several media organizatioons, Civil Society Organizations, Federal Government delegation led by Honourable Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Mr. Clem Agba.
According to the Minister, all states should support the social protection iniatives, adding it is a way of Civil Societies, complementing and suspporting government efforts in the fight against poverty.
THE HONOURABLE MINISTER OF STATE, BUDGET AND NATIONAL PLANNING, PRINCE CLEM IKANADE AGBA AT THE PROJECT INCEPTION MEETING AND OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE SOCIAL PROTECTION MOVEMENT BY AFRICA NETWORK FOR ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE IN NIGERIA HELD AT VICHI GATE HOTEL, MABUSHI, ABUJA ON TUESDAY, 23RDMARCH, 2021.
PROTOCOLS
I wish to thank the organizers of this meeting for the invitation extended to me as the Special Guest on this auspicious occasion of the inception meeting and launch of the Social Protection movement in Nigeria.
2. Permit me to congratulate Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) on kick- starting the implementation of the “Enhancing Social Protection programme in five States of Nigeria”. I also wish to commend your organization for the initiative and effort at strengthening the advocacy for Social Protection programme in Nigeria. The support of Bread for the World-Protestant Development Services is also highly appreciated.
3. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, there is no better time to strengthen social protection programme in Nigeria than now particularly with our recentexperience with the COVID-19 Pandemic that has put the global community including Nigeria on a hot spot to address poverty and vulnerability which are the main objects of social protection programmes.
4. As we may all be aware, social protection systems are at the core of efforts to ensure decent living conditions for the entire population throughout their lives. The proportion of the population covered by social protection floors provides an indication of the extent to which the ideal of the universality of social protection is accomplished as well as how secure the population’s health and living conditions are. Social protection is therefore a key indicator that conveys information on how protected the population is from the various exigencies potentially faced in life.
5. It is because of his firm belief in poverty reduction and social protection that President Mohammadu Buhari, GCFR, has, in the cardinal programme of his administration, been specifically committed to the agenda of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next ten years. This is also in line with the decade of action of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), which is global agenda to end poverty by the year 2030. All hands are therefore on deck to ensure decent living, devoid of extreme poverty by every Nigerian citizen.
6. It is instructive to note that poverty and social protection are some of the key issues addressed in the Medium-Term National Development Plans (MTNDPs 2021-2025 & 2026-2030) and the Long-Term Perspective Plan, christened “Nigeria Agenda 2050”, which the Federal Government is facilitating with the private sector in the driver’s seat. These plans will soon be ready for full implementation to stimulate economic growth and development in Nigeria.
7. My Ministry is also coordinating the review of the expired national social protection policy (2017-2020) that will address the issues of poverty and vulnerability at both the national and subnational levels of government. The policy under review has already been presented to the 36 States of the Federation including the Federal Capital Territory for their inputs and advice for the purpose of inclusivity and joint ownership. The process, which is in collaboration with the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, our international development partners, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Non-governmental Organizations and all relevant Stakeholders, including Disability Commission has also been subjected to inputs from various groups in the society, including Youth groups and the Academia. A robust Webinar for the general public held via zoom on 16th March, 2021. It is envisaged that the all-inclusive national social protection policy (2021-2025) would be ready in June 2021.
8. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, let me once again appreciate our development partners both multilateral, bilateral and the International Non- Governmental Organisations who have been supporting the development of our dear country to advance the objective of the Global Partnership for Aid effectiveness and ensuring that the delivery of Official Development Assistance to Nigeria is effective. As we may recall, Aid cannot be effective if there is no partnership and despite the fact that the global community is experiencing donor fatigue, our development partners are still striving very hard to strengthen co-operation and collaboration with the government in support of its priority programmes and projects like social protection for poverty reduction in Nigeria.
9. Corruption and macroeconomic instability contribute to the ineffectiveness of aid in Nigeria. In 2005 alone, the total amount of Official Donor Aid (ODA) funds embezzled was reported by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to be in billions of dollars. This appears very disappointing and dispiriting. There is however still light at the end of the tunnel, as Nigeria under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, is committed to ensuring that foreign aid to Nigeria is not only transparently utilized but also determined to turn Nigeria from an aid-recipient country to becoming an aid-donor one. The Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative of the present administration, which I presently Co-Chair is another fitting testimony to our resolve to ensure donor confidence in aid utilization.
Executive Director of Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, Reverend David Ugolor in his welcome address said the NOCOPO project focuses on corruption prevention.
The welcome address is presented thus:
WELCOME ADDRESS BY ANEEJ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, REV DAVID UGOLOR AT THE OFFICIAL RELEASE OF NOCOPO COMPLIANCE RANKING REPORT BY ANEEJ ON 24TH MARCH 2021 IN ABUJA
Protocol!
It is with great honour and pleasure that I welcome you all to the official Launch of NOCOPO Compliance Ranking Report done by the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ as part of the implementation of her civil society advocacy to support anti-corruption and rule of law in Nigeria, CASARN project.
The CASARN project is part of the implementation of the rule of law and anti-corruption, ROLAC Programme, funded by the European Union and implemented by the British Council.
The goal of the CASARN project is to enhance governance in Nigeria by contributing to the fight against corruption, strengthen rule of law and the protection of human rights by reinforcing prevention mechanisms and enhancing civil society and public engagement.
The project is dear to our heart as it is a bold effort from Civil Society to support Government anti-corruption initiative especially as it focuses on corruption prevention.
ANEEJ through the implementation of CASARN has ranked the performance of Ministries, Departments and Agencies on the Nigeria Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO).
Following the adoption and implementation of open contracting as part of commitments under the Open Government Partnership (O.G.P) framework by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), it became imperative for stakeholders especially the non-state actors within the O.G.P framework to support the implementation of such commitment and data publication.
As a global standard that uses unique identifiers to report and publish contracting information across the contracting value chain (from planning to implementation), the open contracting data standard (O.C.D.S) ensures that analytics can easily detect red flags in the contracting spectrum with a view to promoting transparency, accountability, wider public participation and value for money in public expenditure.
With the effort made by the Bureau of Public Procurement (B.P.P) in implementing open contracting data standard (O.C.D.S), a complementary ranking has been created to assess the level of compliance and quality of data published by M.D.As on the NOCOPO portal.
This will help the Bureau of Public Procurement and other O.G.P stakeholders to identify gaps in the implementation and how best to address such gaps and improve on the compliance levels of public institutions, especially as Nigeria has commence the implementation of the second National Action Plan.
Thus, the Nigeria Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) Ranking is a further step to improving Nigeria’s open contracting commitment under the O.G.P through an assessment of Ministries Departments and Agencies’s (M.D.As) compliance with the Secretary-General of the Federation’s (S.G.F’S) circulars issued in 2018 on the implementation of open contracting at the federal level through an algorithm-based Ranking.
A total of 113 Ministries Departments and Agencies (M.D.As) were assessed or evaluated out of the over 173 M.D.As on the Open Data Segment of the Nigerian Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) as at the time of the evaluation.
The Ranking was designed to cover 2018 procurement records and 2019 procurement Plan and only evaluated data published on the NOCOPO platform by MDAs.
The ranking provided in-depth insights on how well M.D.As have complied as evident in the number of projects, quality of data provided across all stages of contracting.
These data are needed for contract monitoring, feedback and measuring impact of service delivery.
The ranking also provided a clue on the quality of datasets published across stages in the contracting value chain showing how compliant the MDAs have been to the circulars issued by the S.G.F in 2018.
The ranking is the first of its kind in Nigeria and we hope that CSOs working on procurement reform will take advantage of this foundation to conduct subsequent rankings for 2019 procurement records and beyond.
The highlight of today’s event is to present a symbolic award to the first four M.D.As that complied substantially with the use of NOCOPO by sharing relevant procurement data across the five stages of public procurement.
Tops on the list of the M.D.As were Nigeria Police Academy, Kano; Federal College of Education, Abeokuta; University of Lagos and National Orthopedic Hospital, Enugu. PHOTO: ANEEJ
This is to incentivise the MDAs that came out tops on the ranking and to as well encourage others to follow suit to ensure a transparent and an accountable procurement processes in Nigeria.
We appreciate the support from ROLAC team who have made it possible for ANEEJ to receive this funding.
We particularly thank the European Union and British Council for funding ANEEJ work. I am delighted that you are able to attend this historic event.
