SAT, MAY. 13 2023-theGBJournal| The Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) says it will commence the 2023 assessment of MDAs, as part of efforts to reposition public service for effective and efficient delivery of good governance.
Mr Dasuki Arabi, the Director-General of the Bureau made this known during the strategic meeting of the inter ministerial task team for ranking of websites of Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs).
According to him, the assessment is necessary in driving Nigeria’s Ease of Doing Business and other policies.
“We shall perform the inauguration of the 2023 scorecard and secondly, inaugurate the Jury that will drive the assessment and scoring of websites of the MDAs selected for the 2023 scorecard. The scorecard ranking is a flagship project of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms institutionalized by the Federal Government in 2017. It was to drive effective and efficient implementation of the Ease of Doing Business policy, Freedom of Information Act and Nigeria’s commitments to Open Government Partnership,” Arabi said.
On government websites, he said that beyond the strict competition which the initiative generated among the MDAs, the overall objective of the scorecard was a peer review mechanism.
According to him, this will ensure that government websites are consistent with global standard and practice.
“Essentially, it was intended to entrench uniformity and interoperability across MDAs to improve proactive and unhindered access to government information. And ensure MDAs become more accessible to the public about its operations and overall mandates.”
He said that it would also make MDAs’ information readily available and widely communicated to the public and bring them up to date in standards and contents on regular basis, facilitate access to government services online, taking advantage of the rapid growth of mobile devices and broadband penetration to meet the growing needs of the citizenry.
“It makes MDAs reachable within working hours to attend to public complaints and enquiries on timely basis; reduce man to man contact in government transaction and curb online scam,” the D-G added.
He said that since 2017 when the bureau began the assessment, it has moved from 70 MDAs to over 580, using 14 criteria.
Members of the inter ministerial jury for the assessment include Galaxy Backbone, JAMB, FRCN, Federal Civil Service Commission, Office of Auditor General of the Federation and Servicom, among others.
Arabi said the jury to undertake the assessment and scoring of the websites of 400 MDAs will be headed by Mrs Mary Uduma.
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