79 MDAs Fail to Comply With SGF’s Directive on Use of Open Contracting Portal - ANEEJ Report.

By Lucky Isibor.

About Seventy-nine (79) Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government (MDAs) have failed to comply with the directives of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) on the Use of Nigeria Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) as contained in the SGF’S circulars Ref. No PROC/BPP/045/I/89 and Ref.No.59780/S.5/C.2/11/6 issued in  2018. 

This revelation was disclosed by the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) at the launch of its new product which ranked Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies on their compliance to the use of the  Portal adding that the MDAs scored between 0- 7.99 points.

Executive Director of ANEEJ, Rev David Ugolor while releasing the report in Benin City Wednesday, 3 March, said of the 113 MDAs assessed, only 34 MDAs scored between 13.21 to 19 points which earned such MDAs “Substantial compliance” status while 79 other MDAs are “not compliant” with the SGF’s directives- An MDA is substantially compliant when all or substantial procurement data across the different stages (from planning to implementation) are published on NOCOPO portal, the report said.

                      Rev. David Ugolor

               Executive Director, ANEEJ

According to the report,, "The top-ranking MDAs are: Nigeria Police Academy, Kano; Federal College of Education, Abeokuta; University of Lagos and National Orthopedic Hospital, Enugu. These MDAs and others are in the green colour categorisation. Infrastructure Regulatory Commission, Aminu Kano University Teaching Hospital and 77 others were placed last on the table."

Ugolor further disclosed that “the ranking carried out by ANEEJ further aims to ascertain the level of compliance of government agencies on the portal which was part of the Open Government Partnership’s (OGP) commitment of Nigeria.

“The Nigerian Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) Ranking is a further step to improving Nigeria’s open contracting commitment under the OGP through an assessment of Ministries, Departments and Agencies’s (MDAs) compliance with the Secretary-General of the Federation’s (SGF’S) circulars Ref. No PROC/BPP/045/I/89 and Ref.No.59780/S.5/C.2/11/6 issued in  2018 on the implementation of open contracting at the federal level through an algorithm-based Ranking. 

"This ranking further aims to ascertain the level of compliance of government agencies on the portal which was part of the Open Government Partnership’s (OGP) commitment of Nigeria. More so, the ranking through an algorithm, disaggregated the number of projects these MDAs have published within the phase and timeline the ranking captured which is 2018-2019.

“A total of 113 Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) were assessed or evaluated out of the over 173 MDAs on the Nigeria Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) as at August 20, 2020.  The Ranking was designed to cover 2018 procurement records and 2019 procurement Plan and only evaluated data published on the NOCOPO platform by these MDAs and in line with the 2018 circular issued by the SGF the same year which is the year the ranking assesses.

“Only 1 MDA – The Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, earned the “Partial Compliant” status by scoring 9.67 point. An MDA is partially compliant when some data across the stages being assessed are partly published. This is in the orange colour category."

While noting that several other MDAs are not using the NOCOPO portal at all and as such not assessed in the ranking, Rev. Ugolor said:  "A total of 79 MDAs were “Not Compliant” as they scored between 0 - 7.99 points. These are in the Red colour category. An MDA is not compliant when it fails to publish procurement data on NOCOPO portal.” 

The Ranking was calculated between July 15th -20th August 2020 and covered 2 fiscal years period of 2018-2019, specifically 2018 records and 2019 procurement plans. The implication is that MDAs whose information were not uploaded and available for public viewing within this timeframe were not included in the ranking. 

The ranking provided in-depth insights on how well MDAs 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 SGF in 2018. 

Rev David Ugolor commended the leadership of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) for their role in the implementation of OGP commitments, particularly commitment 2 under fiscal transparency which is “Full Implementation of Open Contracting & Adoption of Open Contracting Data Standards in Public Sector,” pointing out that now that implementation of NAP 1 has ended and NAP 2 has commenced, the commitment on open contracting needs to be sustained.

He further said the focus this time around is to ensure “full operationalization of Open Contracting and Effective Deployment and Use of Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS) to Meet Diverse Stakeholders Needs” and that the ranking by ANEEJ and its partners is to complement the work of BPP in this regard. 

ANEEJ carried out the ranking of MDAs as part of activities in the implementation of Civil Society Advocacy to Support Anti-corruption and Rule of Law in Nigeria (CASARN) project. The project is part of the implementation of the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Programme (ROLAC) which is funded by the European Union and implemented by the British Council.