Tinubu’s plan to reshuffle his cabinet a welcome development- Niger Delta group
President Bola Tinubu
Published By: Ayorinde Oluokun
By Okafor Ofiebor, Port Harcourt
A group, the Niger Delta Rights Advocates (NDRA) has hailed the decision to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to reshuffle his cabinet as announced on Wednesday by presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga.
NDRA, in a statement signed by Chuks Alozie, its Head of Research noted that it had earlier in the year advocated the recalibration of the President Tinubu’s cabinet in line with the demands of the larger spectrum of stakeholders.
NDRA also demanded that the Policy Coordination and the Central Delivery Coordination Unit (CDCU) under the Presidency should be totally insulated from political nuances.
The group said his is the only way a proper Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of the the performance of Ministers who are the salesmen of the administration’s policies/agenda, can get fair and trustworthy assessment.
“We would like to also state that making the component factors for this assessment of public officers such as Cabinet Ministers should be open to public debate and scrutiny. This will enhance transparency in the process of evaluation going forward,” the group said.
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The NDRA also proposed that as part of strategy to implement the much talked about Steve Orasanye report on the harmonization of MDAs and to help government cut cost, the Ministry of Police Affairs be integrated into the Interior Ministry under the leadership of Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo.
The group noted that the Ministry of Interior under Dr Tunji-Ojo has delivered on the critical elements of good governance and public accountability which has increased citizens’ trust in the present administration.
“The NDRA believes that performance should be measured in terms of the level of achievement of the objectives of each Ministry (which simply put is effectiveness) or the level of costs incurred to achieve these objectives (efficiency). And we believe that the Interior Ministry under the current administration has hit that mark and signposts efficiency for a public agency.
“Furthermore, NDRA challenged the Policy Coordination and the Central Delivery Coordination Unit (CDCU) to publish its benchmarks (tools/indicators) for further public scrutiny and contestation of logic in order to ensure that those public officials who fall terribly below par, do not even get the chance to hold public offices in future (whether elective or appointment).
“It will also help ruling parties to cascade the idea of properly scrutinizing persons they nominate into public offices going forward,” NDRA concluded.
