How Tinubu will assess ministers’ performance –Hadiza Bala Usman

Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on policy coordination, Hadiza Bala-Usman, has said the citizens’ delivery tracker launched by the federal government will use empirical data to evaluate the performance of the ministers.

Bala-Usman revealed this on Monday during a Nigerian Info 99.3FM radio live programme tagged Hard Facts.

Responding to questions on the efficiency of the tracker, the presidential aide said it was not based on the generality of opinions, but the evidence supported by data.

She said, “It is not a popularity assessment, but specific-based. The data will show it, for instance, saying have we seen an increase in crude oil production? How many passports have been produced? We are going to have a data-driven assessment.

“We used empirical data to guide the basis to assess the performance of the ministers.”

Speaking about her principal’s efforts in curtailing insecurity, Bala-Usman said, “Tackling insecurity is the President’s second priority following the reforming of the economy. It is important and being addressed. Mr President is crystal clear on it.”

When a caller said a lot of Nigerians cannot trust the tracker in as much as Tinubu’s administration had failed to comment or act on some jaw-dropping revelations made by an investigative journalist, Fisayo Soyombo, on the Nigeria Customs Service.

Responding, Bala-Usman said she believed that “a panel has been set up to consolidate (the allegations), and the Customs Service is doing that I believe.”

Recently, a development expert, Oriyomi Anthony, commended Tinubu for launching the tracker saying that the initiative had shown that the he meant business to work with the private sector.

He said, “Although the President Bola Tinubu government’s quest to convince Nigerians that it will make things better is still hanging in the balance, an initiative launched earlier this week has shown that the administration means business and has helped in assuaging the initial doubts of skeptics like me.

“For the first time, I see a government that wants to run the country with some private sector mindset, giving the impression that government business will be taken more seriously, which I hope will indeed be the case.”