Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, has urged members of the National Steering Committee, NSC, of the Nigeria Open Government Partnership (OGP) to intensify efforts at ensuring that the government’s second National Action Plan (NAP II) is fully implemented.
The minister raised concern that only three out of the 14 commitments were implemented in the first national action plan (NAP I) that was operated between 2017 and 2019.
The three areas concerned open budget, ease of doing business, and reviewing open government laws.
A review of the implementation of the first National Action Plan (NAP I) that was conducted by the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) of the OGP showed that nine commitments saw limited implementation.
“Two of these were not started during the implementation period. Both relate to information-sharing among anti-corruption agencies and building technology for citizen engagement, and have been carried over to the next action plan,” Prince Agba said during the OGP interactive dialogue in Abuja on Tuesday.
The minister said for some of the commitments, the details of IRM findings and recommendations were damning and called for deep reflections from all of the OGP thematic working groups (TWGs).
Read him: “But this is not the time for despair as there is work ahead of us. We must immediately get to the work of implementing this second action plan for better outcomes seeing that we have about one year left of our implementation cycle.”
He urged them to work with the secretariat to develop communication plans for the work they do in the action plan.
Agba said it was extremely important as Nigeria was currently faced with situations in which citizens needed to be reassured that the government was with them, for them and not against them.
Minister of Youths and Sports, Sunday Dare, said inclusivity was very vital to achieving government’s plans.
Mr Dare who joined the meeting from Dallas, Texas where he is on official assignment said the strength of the partnership was to come up with co-creating open government reforms.
“We have to identify stakeholders to help in advancing thematic priorities.”
He said that would help government device means to evaluate its efforts and project new ways to better the process and strengthen the action plan, and “device what we need to do new.”
Also, CEO of PPDC/non-state actors incoming OGP co-chair, Nkem Ilo, said government had to go beyond the boundaries that hold her.
“We need to ensure the security and welfare of all Nigerians. We need to create a partway for all to succeed.
“I am going to ask that we commit ourselves to this process. If we are able to deliver on that nap, we will be able to deliver on that national action plan,” she stated.
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