Presidency advocates attitudinal change

Presidency advocates attitudinal change

Nigeria’s Vice-President, Namadi Sambo, has advocated for attitudinal change among Nigerians to facilitate economic growth and development.

Sambo, who is also the Chairman of the National Planning Commission, stated this in Abuja at the validation meeting of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Evaluating Nigeria’s Vision 20:2020.

Improving Nigeria’s rating

He said: “It is clear that we would not improve on our rating, if we do not change our approach of addressing serious issues in consonance with the wishes and aspirations of our people as encapsulated in our transformation programmes.

 “It is my belief that the change in attitude and commitment to national goals will facilitate improvement in the economic growth and development of our dear country. 

 “It is my charge that we strive towards achieving our set objectives.’’

Sambo said that the meeting was significant as it was coming on the heels of the presidential retreat on the Transformation Agenda for Ministers and Permanent secretaries.

He observed that it would also enable Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to have “in-depth knowledge of the direction of policies in the medium term, especially with regards to implementation of the Transformation Agenda from 2011 to 2015.’’

 The vice-president stated that government placed high premium on the validation exercise.

Tracking the transformation agenda

He emphasized that the KPIs would not only form the basis for tracking the performance of the Vision 20:2020 blueprint and the transformation agenda, but also those of ministers, permanent secretaries and their respective staff during the period under review.

He frowned at the failure of some MDAs to meet their sectoral targets as contained in the First National Monitoring and Evaluation Report covering January to December 2010.

He, therefore, charged them to take the exercise seriously.

Vice-President Sambo also urged the MDAs to study the Vision 20:2020 and the National Transformation Agenda for effective implementation.

He also enjoined ministers to establish Monitoring and Evaluation Units to facilitate the generation of requisite data for the production of the performance evaluation report from ``mid to end of 2011 and beyond’’.

He said that government hoped to extend the process to sub-national levels with effect from 2012.

“Our focus is to produce annual country reports that capture the monitoring and evaluation performance of all levels of government and critical private sector operations in the country,” he said.

The Minister of National Planning and Deputy Chairman, of the National Planning Commission, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, explained that the validation meeting was part of efforts at ensuring improved quality of the 2011 Mid-year Evaluation report.

He stated that some of the KPIs used in preparing the 2010 report would also be reviewed and a timeline for data collection agreed by all stakeholders.

He added that the 2011 mid-year report would be ready by September.

The event witnessed the presence of ministers, permanent secretaries and government officials.

NAN/Williams