NIGERIA’S ROAD TO BENEFICIAL OWNERSHIP TRANSPARENCY, By Prince Clem Ikanade Agba

(BEING A WELCOME ADDRESS DELIVERED BY THE HONOURABLE MINISTER OF STATE BUDGET AND NATIONAL PLANNING, PRINCE CLEM IKANADE AGBA, AT THE MEDIA PRESENTATION ON NIGERIA’S ROAD TO BENEFICIAL OWNERSHIP TRANSPARENCY ON MONDAY, 17TH MAY, 2021)

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome you, on behalf of the Nigeria Open Government Partnership National Steering Committee and Secretariat, to this media presentation on Nigeria’s Road to Beneficial Ownership Transparency – which encompasses the design and development of an open register of beneficial owners of registered entities in Nigeria. I want to specially welcome my dear brother, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr Boss Mustapha and appreciate him for making time to join us today. The purpose of this gathering is a confirmation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment to implement open government ideals.

Today’s event marks the start of the Global Open Government Week for this year. For one week in May, since 2018, open government doers, leaders, and thinkers from around the world come together to share ideas, discuss solutions, and commit to new levels of citizen participation in government.

This year’s Open Gov Week Theme focuses on how we renew or build again, governments institutions and societies that are transparent, accountable, participatory, and inclusive. The Nigeria Open Government Partnership National Steering Committee has decided to focus on two critical areas of our National Action Plan – rebuilding trust between the police and citizens through dialogue and the implementation of Beneficial Ownership Transparency Principles.

We are gathered here today to discuss the progress so far and the road ahead of us in the implementation of a commitment made by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari related to Beneficial Ownership Transparency at the London Anti-corruption Summit in May 2016.

At the summit, President Buhari said and I quote “Nigeria is committed to establishing a public central register of company beneficial ownership information. We are taking steps to ensure transparency of the ownership and control of all companies involved in property purchase and public contracting. Nigeria is already collating this information through the Extractive Industry Initiative process and would extend it to other sectors. Nigeria will establish a transparent central register of foreign companies bidding on public contracts and buying property.” Following this statement, His Excellency announced that Nigeria will be joining the Open Government Partnership – a global coalition of reformers from government and civil society working to make government transparent, participatory and accountable to truly serve and empower citizens.

We have worked closely with civil society and private sector partners in the design and development of commitments in the first and second National Action Plans; and have sustained a regular multi-stakeholder forum to address challenges in the course of implementation of the plan. The road has not been easy and this is expected in pristine partnerships such as this one but I am grateful for the support I have received from my colleagues on the National Steering Committee. I have often told them that the mandate I received from His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari was firm and clear – that everyone should be given a chance to contribute to the development and progress of our country.

The Open Government Week presents us with an opportunity to take stock of our progress, learn lessons, lay out the road ahead and re-commit ourselves to the work ahead. So, I crave your indulgence to outline some of the things we have done so far:
⦁        Revision of 2020 budget – We held a virtual public consultation on the revision of the budget to allow the government adequately respond to the pandemic by redeploying and reallocating resources in the budget.
⦁        High level roundtable – I convened a roundtable meeting with stakeholders in government, civil society and donor partners to explain the government’s response to COVID-19 pandemic as well as solicit their feedback.
⦁        Disclosure of payments – To keep the public informed about government expenditure, we began publishing all payments and expenditure above a certain threshold. More still needs to be done here especially when the Civil Service is fully at work.  Currently some levels of staff members are home due to Covid-19 protocols.
⦁        Monitoring and Evaluation – We increased our monitoring and evaluation process to ensure that we are not only getting value for the money but that we are deploying these resources to immediate use. To show government commitment to this, I led the inspection of the projects from hospital equipment to rural road construction to the building of molecular laboratories etc.
⦁        Eye Mark – To sustain the Monitoring and Evaluation process and allow citizens to also provide feedback, we are building a web application that will allow citizens to report challenges with government projects and allow the government to geotag all projects.
⦁        Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020 – We successfully repealed and re-enacted the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020 with provision for disclosure of persons with significant control of registered entities.
⦁        Circular on procurement – The SGF and Bureau for Public Procurement continued to issue call circulars to all Ministries, Department and Agencies to publish their procurement data on the Nigeria Open Contracting Portal in a timely manner. I am glad that based on this circular and in line with the specific activity listed in our National Action Plan, our Civil Society partners – Public Private Development Centre and the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) published two compliance rankings of MDAs. I hope to discuss the findings of the rankings and the challenges identified by these CSOs with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the management of the Bureau for Public Procurement.
⦁        Extractive Sector Beneficial Ownership Register – The beneficial ownership register of companies operating in the extractive sector continues to enjoy steady uptake and remains an integral part of the road ahead.
⦁        Revision of the second National Action Plan – We revised our second National Action Plan to respond to the challenge posed by COVID-19.

Speaking about the road ahead, we have gathered here to brief the media about the design and development of an open register of beneficial owners of companies as part of our efforts to keep all stakeholders abreast of this process, ensure that their input is captured in a way that we develop a register that works for everyone.

When I accepted the responsibility of overseeing Nigeria’s Open Government Partnership process, one of the first briefings I received was from Alhaji Garba Abubakar, the Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission. We discussed and strategized on accelerating the president’s assent to the CAMA 2020, the development of this register and ongoing funding discussion with partners. I committed then, and commit myself here, to support this effort to fulfil His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari’s promise to build a beneficial ownership register.

I want to thank the Nigeria Economic Summit Group for the tremendous work they did with other partners in the passage of the CAMA 2020 bill and ask that you keep the private sector actively involved in the process. I wish to recognise the support CAC received from Open Ownership in the review of the Annual Returns forms of the CAC and their commitment to provide technical support for the process.

To ensure that the funding challenge for the development of this register is minimized, the Global Support Unit of the Open Government Partnership through the Multi-Donor Trust Fund awarded a grant of $400,000 to Nigeria. This grant is managed by the World Bank and we are at the final stages of documentation for the release of this grant. I am grateful to my dear friend, Sanjay Pradhan, the CEO of OGP and his entire team in Washington for their tireless interest in the success of Nigeria.

Let me speak briefly about the OGP Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Open Government Partnership (OGP), with the support of development partners and working together with the World Bank, established the OGP Multi-Donor Trust Fund (or the MDTF) to support World Bank client countries and local entities that participate in OGP, or intend to become eligible to participate in OGP.

With the support of French Development Agency, the Government of Canada, and the United Kingdom’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, the MDTF provides awards on a competitive basis to national and local participants with a multi-stakeholder forum, and to partners who will support the learning and building of evidence of impact of OGP commitments. We are grateful for the support we have received from the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. They have provided financial and human resource support for OGP in Nigeria and the Nigeria Open Government Partnership Secretariat since inception. The UK also made a substantial grant to the Multi Donor Trust Fund with the mandate to invest heavily in countries like Nigeria. Despite the impact of COVID-19, the UK recommitted to supporting us in the journey to be open, transparent and accountable.

The National Steering Committee, as outlined in the grant, will receive regular briefing from CAC as well as supervise and monitor utilisation of the grant. With this, I’d like to assure you that the utilization of the grant for the development and deployment of the register will be transparent and documented for the purpose of accountability.

Without further ado, I would like to join my other colleagues to welcome you to this very important and timely event and also thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend to issues that are pertinent to the growth and development of our nation.