Some agencies are competing for the same roles, and a proposal to create new bodies to monitor and evaluate projects by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) has been rejected by the Federal Government. The government argued that establishing additional agencies would duplicate existing functions, as too many entities are already pursuing similar tasks.
Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Zainab Ahmed voiced this concern during the opening session of the Dialogue on the National Monitoring and Evaluation Policy and Women’s Economic Empowerment at State House, Abuja. Responding to remarks by Prof. Dung Pam Sha, who was representing NIPSS Director‑General Kuru, Ahmed, through the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, said: “A little while ago, when the representative of the DG NIPSS, Professor Don Pasha, was speaking, he recommended setting up an agency to handle monitoring and evaluation. I do not support that. We do not need more agencies; we need to reduce the number we have. We have too many, and they are playing competing roles.” She added that she agreed with the emphasis on technology, noting that the current M&E framework already incorporates such tools.
The Federal Government has upgraded its monitoring and evaluation framework by involving citizens through the EyeMark app, launched last December by President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). Sha, speaking to a correspondent on the sidelines, explained that his proposal sought autonomy for the departments tasked with monitoring the implementation of federal projects. He clarified that this did not conflict with the Oronsaye report, which recommends eliminating or merging at least 90 government agencies. “It’s not a clash of interests or goals because any new agency would have a function. We are not insisting that agencies must be created. The departments currently running the programmes and performing M&E should be given some level of independence. Subsuming them into a larger structure makes it very difficult for them to operate. That is the issue we’re raising. We need some kind of autonomy for that department, even if it is not upgraded to an agency,” Sha said.
The Oronsaye report, submitted in 2012, documented 541 statutory and non‑statutory federal parastatals, commissions, and agencies. Its 800‑page recommendations include reducing statutory agencies from 263 to 161, scrapping 38 agencies, merging 52, and reverting 14 to ministries. The report also advises repealing the law establishing the National Salaries and Wages Commission and transferring its functions to the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Responsibility Commission, as well as merging the three top anti‑corruption bodies: the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, and the Code of Conduct Bureau.
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