The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) has emerged as the top-ranked agency in the 2024 National Freedom of Information (FOI) compliance ranking among 245 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
Following NIPC in the top 10 rankings are the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation, and Fiscal Commission (2nd), Development Bank of Nigeria (3rd), Nigerian Export Processing Zone Authority (4th), Bureau of Public Service Reforms (5th), National Bureau of Statistics (6th), Tertiary Education Trust Fund (7th), Nigerian Export Promotion Council (8th), Bureau of Public Enterprises (9th), and National Agricultural Insurance Corporation (10th). The Librarians Registration Council of Nigeria also made it into the ranking.
The rankings were unveiled by a coalition consisting of Accountability Lab Nigeria, Public and Private Development Center, Media Rights Agenda, International Center for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), BudgIT Foundation, and Right2Know yesterday in Abuja.
The data analyst for ICIR, James Emmanuel, provided a rankings breakdown, explaining that MDAs were assessed based on their proactiveness, disclosure levels, and responsiveness to FOI requests.
Emmanuel noted that only 1.22% of the 245 MDAs were fully proactive in the assessment, 6.94% were partially proactive, and a staggering 91.84% were non-proactive.
He also stated that 9.39% (23 MDAs) fully disclosed requested information, 5.71% (14 MDAs) partially disclosed it, and 84.9% (208 MDAs) failed to disclose any information requested.
He stressed that the assessment was based on three parameters: proactive disclosure, responsiveness to information requests, and the level of disclosure. The total points available were 100, with 60 points allocated to proactive disclosure, 20 points for responsiveness, and 20 points for the level of disclosure.
On her part, the programme officer of Right2Know (R2K) Nigeria, Victoria Etim, highlighted challenges faced during the assessment, particularly noting the inactive websites of some MDAs.
“Basically, we looked into government websites to see if they have pertinent information, and we found that a number of institutions did not have any data available, which has been a huge problem for us in the assessment. We want to encourage non-performing MDAs to improve next year,” she stated.
The chief executive officer of the Public and Private Development Center (PDC), Lucy Abagi, urged government agencies to be more transparent and accountable to the public.
She emphasised the importance of providing citizens with the necessary information to monitor and participate in governance. According to her, public institutions should voluntarily release relevant information and provide timely access to public data for informed decision-making.
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