By Dickson Pat
Report from ReportGov.Ng, Nigeria’s Official Public Service Complaint website, has listed the Nigeria Customs Service ,NCS,, the Nigeria Electricity Management Service Agency ,NEMSA, and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria ,FAAN, as the worst-performing government agencies in terms of customer complaints resolution for May 2024.
This is revealed in the report detailing how government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies ,MDAs, fared in responding to complaints in the period.
According to the report, NCS received two complaints in the period under review and resolved none. NEMSA received one complaint and could not resolve it, while FAAN received five complaints and was unable to resolve any.
Meanwhile, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission ,FCCPC, and the Central Bank of Nigeria ,CBN, as the top two government agencies responsive to public complaints in May.
While the FCCPC and CBN occupied the first and second positions respectively, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control ,NAFDAC, emerged third for the month. The government agencies were ranked based on the number of complaints received and the number of such complaints they were able to resolve within the month.
According to the website, the FCCPC received 36 complaints in the month and resolved all of it to score 100% in rate of response. The CBN also received 25 complaints within the month and resolved all of them. This gave the banking regulator a 100% score.
NAFDAC on the other hand received 3 complaints out of which 2 were resolved, giving it a 67% rate of response.
The Report.Gov platform was conceived by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council ,PEBEC, established by the immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari in July 2016 as part of moves to improve the ease of doing business.
The website is to facilitate the escalation and resolution of issues encountered with Ministries Departments and Agencies ,MDAs, towards ensuring a more business-friendly environment.
This presupposes that every MDAs of the government must be responsive to complaints and issues that the people may have during their engagements with them to remove delays and restrictions that come with doing business in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, in a 2020 World Bank report, Nigeria’s ranking in the Ease of Doing Business report improved from 146 to 131, representing its second-highest annual progress in a decade. Nigeria’s highest scores were in the areas of starting a business, dealing with construction permits, and getting credit. However, the country’s performance was low in other areas, such as registering properties, trading across borders, and resolving insolvencies.
Most recently, PEBEC’s 2023 EoDB report showed that at the country-wide level, there was a marginal increase in Nigeria’s overall EoDB satisfaction score to 5.69 on a 10-point scale from 5.45 recorded in the inaugural report. While acknowledging this improvement, PEBEC said there is a lot more to be done to improve the business environment.
