No fewer than 17 federal government agencies have been ranked completely inefficient by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) in its latest Business Facilitation Act (BFA) Performance Report which rates how ministries, departments and agencies are enabling the ease of doing business in Nigeria through implementation of reforms, policies and public service delivery.

The agencies ranked zero in the efficiency metric are Bank of Industry, Trademarks Registry, Environmental Health Council of Nigeria, Federal Produce Inspection Service, Galaxy Backbone Limited, Industrial Training Fund, Joint Tax Board, National Identity Management Commission, National Insurance Commission and National Bureau of Statistics.

Others are the Nigerian Postal Service, Patent and Design Registry, Service Compact, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Nigerian Copyright Commission, Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority and Financial Reporting Council.

The report, which was released over the weekend, assessed 69 MDAs between January and October 2025, on the scale of efficiency, transparency, responsiveness, and mystery shopping – a metric which uses real-life scenarios to test the compliance level of business-facing MDAs against their published Service Level Agreements (SLA) as mandated by the BFA 2022.Galaxy Backbone

It evaluated “how effectively MDAs are implementing the statutory transparency and efficiency requirements established under the Business Facilitation Act 2022 (BFA 2022).”

BFA 2022 was signed into law in February 2023 as part of the federal government’s strategy to consolidate and expand the country’s ease of doing business reforms. Established in 2016 by the late President Muhammadu Buhari, PEBEC is saddled with the responsibilities of implementing the act with a view to removing the bottlenecks and bureaucratic constraints of doing business in Nigeria.

Aside from the 17 agencies that scored zero in the Efficiency Compliance Ranking, which “provides an assessment of how effectively MDAs adhered to key service delivery obligations under BFA 2022,” 10 others ranked very low. They are: National Inland Waterways Authority, 30%; National Pension Commission, 30%; Special Control Unit for Money Laundering, 30%; Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, 29.0%; National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, 29.0%; Ministry of Interior, 20.0%; Nigeria Investment Promotion Council, 20.0%; Securities and Exchange Commission, 19.0%; Central Bank of Nigeria-National Collateral Registry, 13.0%; National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, 6.0%.

The report also revealed that of 54 MDAs whose overall performance across the metrics were documented, almost half performed abysmally. Twenty MDAs scored between 52.9% and 90.6%, eight garnered 42.4% to 48.8% while 21 scored in the range of 3% to 38.9%.

The poorly performed MDAs are: National Inland Waterways Authority, 38.9%; Patent and Design Registry, 38.9%; National Insurance Commission, 37.3%; Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation, 37.1%; Galaxy Backbone Limited, 37.0%; Industrial Training Fund, 30.8%; Securities and Exchange Commission, 28.9%.

Others are Central Bank of Nigeria-National Collateral Registry, 25.5%; National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, 24.6%; Bank of Industry, 24.1%; Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, 22.9%; Trademarks Registry, 22.3%; Ministry of Interior, 19.5%; Nigerian Postal Service, 17.1%; Nigerian Copyright Commission, 16.3%; Federal Produce Inspection Service, 16.0%; National Bureau of Statistics, 14.9%; Joint Tax Board, 14.6%; Environmental Health Council of Nigeria, 14.5%; National Identity Management Commission, 12.7%; Service Compact, 12.6% and Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria 3.0%.

The top five performing MDAs include Nigerian Content Development Management Board, 90.6%; National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, 89.3%; Nigeria Customs Service, 86.6%; Nigerian Communications Commission; 85.3% and Nigerian Ports Authority, 84.2%.

MDAs score low in transparency, service delivery, others

The mystery shopping index of the report indicated that many MDAs fell short in terms of customer experience, overall service delivery, transparency, usability of digital platforms as well as clarity and accessibility of published information. Some of the MDAs found deficient in this aspect include Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, 38.5%; Environmental Health Council of Nigeria, 37.7%; Bank of Industry, 36.9%; Nigerian Export-Import Bank, 34.6%; Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation, 33.3%; Service Compact, 31.5%; Ministry of Interior, 28.1%; Trademarks Registry, 25.4%; Federal Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development, 22.2%; Federal Ministry of Environment, 22.2%; Federal Ministry of Power, 22.2% and Nigeria Export Processing Zone Authority,11.5%;

The top five MDAs in the mystery shopping category are the National Pension Commission, 100.0%; National Drug Law Enforcement Agency 95.0%; Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, 94.6%; Nigeria Immigration Service, 94.2% and Nigerian Content Development Management Board, 92.9%.

“The report’s findings show a clear upward trajectory: MDAs are increasingly adhering to published Service Level Agreements (SLAs), improving transparency, and resolving citizen and business complaints more effectively through ReportGov. These gains affirm the BFA’s core premise: legal obligations backed by systematic monitoring drive behavioural change at scale.

“The report also highlights critical gaps in automation, customer experience, and inter-agency coordination that must be urgently addressed. Closing these gaps is essential not only for compliance, but for building the type of public service that Nigeria’s economic ambitions demand: one that is digitally enabled, operationally coherent, and consistently reliable across all touch points,” the report added.

Efforts to get comments of the MDAs that underperformed in the report proved abortive. However, economic experts and public affairs analysts say several factors could be responsible, noting that the poor performance undermines efforts to improving the economy.

Economist and Director Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprises (CPPE), Dr. Muda Yusuf, said the whole essence of the report is to be able to monitor the effectiveness of these agencies and urged the government to act on it.

He said, “Now that we have a report, it is only appropriate that the government should act on the report. PEBEC is under the Vice President who has an oversight role over economic issues. I think from the Office of the Vice President, these agencies should be asked to explain why they are not living up to the expectation. Perhaps, they may have some reasons. Perhaps, they have funding problem or capacity problem. Perhaps, they are just negligent.

“Right now, we don’t have the opportunity of hearing from them to know why they are performing some poorly. They may have their reasons and if they don’t have any cogent reason, there has to be some consequences from the Office of the Vice President or from the presidency itself. That is the only way this report can be taken seriously. Otherwise, it will be regarded as just an academic exercise. And for those who have done well, they should also be commended from the Office of the President or the Vice President. That will encourage them to even do better.

“The implication [of the poor performance] is that if you are talking about ease of doing business, improving the investment climate, productivity, creating jobs, $1 trillion dollar economy, if you don’t have the support of these MDAs how can you achieve that? They are supposed to facilitate the realization of the economic objectives of the government. If they are not performing well, how are we going to achieve these objectives?”

A public analyst and professor of economics at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State, Professor Sheriffdeen Tella, noted poor staffing, corruption, lack of dedication, among other factors could be responsible for the poor ranking of the MDAs.

“It simply means they are not effective in their functions. Poor staffing could be part of the reasons. Corruption could also be the cause. And if the dedication is not there, productivity will be very low. When people are not properly paid for the job they are doing, they will not be dedicated and productivity will be very low,” he said.

Professor Tella charged the government to regularly review MDAs’ responsibilities to ensure they live up to the expectations, adding that failure to do so could impact economic growth.

He said, “When you give people’s task, there must be review from time to time. Sometimes, when the government gives tasks (to MDAs), it doesn’t follow up. When this (follow-up) does not happen, people just do what they like. At the end of the day, you discover that you have not reached halfway of what you set out to achieve.

“Government should monitor its policies regularly, because even if a policy is introduced and it has negative outcomes, they don’t easily change it. It shows that they don’t monitor the outcome of their policies. The issue of efficiency is there. Are those employed really qualified to do the job? Are they sincere and dedicated to do the job? Now that the report is out, we must correct the anomalies because they are part of what affects economic growth.”

The Executive Director of the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, Debo Adeniran, maintained that the poorly-performed MDAs are a reflection of the government’s inefficiency and a wake-up call for the leadership to assess itself.

“The government needs to examine itself. It is easy for them to say the GDP is improving and that Nigeria is the fastest growing economy among the third world countries, but if it doesn’t show from the performance of the MDAs, it means that we cannot rely on their figures. The government should not live in self-denial and the public should be vigilant.

“The government should do self-assessment and come up with new strategies to truly improve the economy. The sum total of the poor performance of many of the MDAs is government failure because they constitute the engine room of the government,” he stated.

Adeniran said the poor ranking of the MDAs on the efficiency scale is indicative of how civil servants respond to the yearnings of the people or those who want to do business with the government.

“They make life difficult for anyone who wants to do transactions with the government. If the engine room of the government is receding, it means the people are the ultimate victims of the inefficiency. If the ease of doing business is not enhanced, an average citizen will not be able to make profit from their economic activities and that means failure of the economy,” he added. (Daily Trust)

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