Presidency unveils platform for citizens’ feedback

The Presidency on Monday unveiled its Citizens’ Delivery Tracker to provide a “strong feedback loop between citizens and government” on the eight priority areas of the Bola Tinubu administration.

The President’s Special Adviser on Policy and Coordination, Hadiza Bala-Usman, disclosed this at the Go-Live event of the CDT holding in Abuja on Monday.

“The platform is available as a web link (app.cdcu.gov.ng) and will be available as an app for download in the next few months,” said Bala-Usman.

Bala-Usman said Monday’s unveiling is the culmination of a months-long process since Tinubu announced plans for ministerial assessment at the Cabinet Retreat for ministers and heads of government agencies last November.

In reaching the key performance indicators, the presidential aide explained, “The CDCU held numerous bilateral meetings with Ministries, Departments and Agencies within six weeks.”

The eight priority areas are: Reform the economy to deliver sustained inclusive growth, strengthen national security for peace and prosperity, boost agriculture to achieve food security, and unlock energy and natural resources for sustainable development.

Others are to enhance infrastructure and transportation as enablers of growth, focus on education, health, and social investment as essential pillars of development, accelerate diversification through industrialisation, digitisation, creative arts, manufacturing & innovation and Improve governance for effective service delivery.

In an interview on TVC last October, Bala-Usman revealed that the FG would prioritise citizen engagement to ensure that Nigerians are part of the ministerial assessment.

“We’re going to deploy an application, a software where citizens are able to report back on project-based deliverables that the federal government has committed to doing within the period to 2024,” she explained.

Detailing the process at the time, she said, “We sat with the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. We have worked effectively to define exactly the deliverables for each ministry.

“And those deliverables are also deliverables that I mentioned cascade to the agencies of government. So, for example, you have the sectoral deliverables for a sector in health, and everything that is contained within the value chain or the ecosystem within that sector will be contained within the deliverables.

“Those deliverables are translated into key performance indicators for the respective ministries. Once you have your key performance indicators, you’re able to clearly understand what your deliverables are over the period of the four years of the administration.”

In late January, no fewer than 140 officials were drafted to track and assess the performance of federal ministries, departments, and agencies ahead of the first assessment exercise at the end of this month.

The officials joined the third technical retreat for delivery desk officers of federal ministries on the implementation of presidential priorities and ministerial deliverables in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital, which began on Wednesday, the 24th of that month.

They were drawn from 35 federal government ministries, departments, and agencies.

“It will involve a permanent secretary and directors of planning and other officials, four each from 35 ministries.

“They are considering the modalities of the assessment, the key performance indicators and the reporting mechanisms, and all of those,” an official at the CDCU told our correspondent.

Details shortly…