Open Government Partnership: Opportunity For The Incoming States’ Administration -By Kareem Abdulrasaq

Across the globe citizens have faced a whole of problems associated with poor access to information, public resources mismanagement, poor support of innovative idea, non-participatory budgeting, etc. While these have affected service delivery, poor feedback, changes, they have also created bottleneck between the civil society and government. Hence, those who have the courage to questions the use of public resources are labeled government antagonists and their participation is kept off the table. To correct this notion, an Open Government Partnership (OGP) was launched in 2011. OGP – a multilateral and multi-stakeholder initiative was designed to bring together government, Civil Society and organized private sector to create action plans that make government more inclusive, responsive and accountable at national and subnational level. This is to promote transparency, empower citizens, tackle corruption and harness innovation and technology to strengthen governance.

Since its launch in 2011, OGP has 79 participating countries and 20 subnational governments who have made over 3,100 commitments to make their governments more open and accountable. It is believed that through the platform, both the state and civil society will become co-equal partners in co-creating commitments which a nation would then work to achieve and have a common ground on issues that affect the country. Admiring this genuine initiative, Nigeria joined the platform in July 2016, a month after the president Muhammadu Buhari expressed the commitment of the country to the principles of OGP at the London Anti-Corruption Summit.

Nigeria membership of OGP network may not be unconnected to promote transparency in the public offices. It is believed that effective management of the pubic office is vital to rapid socio-economic development. This is because there is a whole lot of illegal dealings (hiding of information, poor procurement practices, budget manipulation, money laundry, inflation of the prices of goods, awards of a contract to family and friends, etc.) taking place in the sector, making it inefficient to effectively deliver in the country.

As part of the obligation OGP, the country developed its OGP National Action Plan for 2017-2019 which focused on 4 thematic areas namely Fiscal Transparency, Anti-Corruption, Access to Information and Citizens’ Engagement. Under these thematic areas, there are 14 commitments namely citizens’ participation, open contracting, anti-corruption information sharing, FOIA compliance for review and disclosure, joint government/civil society legislative review, technology based citizens based feedback, permanent dialogue mechanism, etc. These commitments are aimed at enhancing innovation, economic development and accelerated the transformation of the public services. Since January 2017, there has been some level of significance improvement in the public disclosure of information as well as the citizens’ inclusion in the decision making process. This has helped citizens aware of some of its government dealings, a practice otherwise strange in the public sector. The participation of citizens in the recovered asset loots and its utilization, planning process at the federal level speak volume. The availability of information on the government capital budget by the MDAs across the 36 states and FCT, has given many citizens the opportunity to track and report compliance and inefficiency in their respective locations

If federal government is becoming more accountable, open in its budgeting, engaging citizens, and disclosing relevant, the impacts on the way government and public services work cannot be ignored. In this regard, subnational governments need to imbibe the culture because it is where significant level of services are delivered. Evidence has shown that most states government are characterized with high level of fiscal secrecy, corruption, poor culture of accountability, and access to technology. These have created difficulty in achieving good governance, and better development. It is part of the attempt to correct the culture that the Declaration was made by the OGP Steering Committee at the OGP summit in Paris in 2016 on the need to take OGP to provinces, states and local levels. It was observed that a large number of open government innovations and reforms occur at the local level and for the OGP to realized its objective in a country, proximity of the government to the citizens’ is key for direct and effective public services delivery.

It needs to note here that the multi-stakeholder representation in all aspects of governance in OGP span from initial dialogue to making decisions to actual execution. Through this platform, it is believed that subnational government could work with the civil society groups, and the private sectors; to identify loop hole, designed commitment and create innovative step towards moving it out of its currents state of development. State such has Kano, Ebonyi, Anambra, Niger, Abia, Edo, Enugu and Kaduna who have signed into the OGP did not do that in vacuum, they saw great opportunity to improve and attract innovation in the governance. They see opportunity that enable governments to work better for citizens; they understand that when government is open and accountable, it gains people’ confidence, increases legitimacy, attract development partners, investors and enable peace of mind. They see beyond the signatory but the future benefits. In this regard, commitments area not only made but executed.

Many states are not OGP signatory because, they believed in status quo and dictate of godfather. They lack vision and trust. Apart from the low commitment toward open governance, they have poor attitude towards governance related issues, coupled with high level of illegal dealings/corruption. Similarly, they are associated with cabinet members who do not speak truth, understand the core principles and opportunity in OGP. Sometimes, public officers’ wives, son/daughter and friends are civil society recognized by the subnational government. They see new faces and private sector as threat to their policies and programs. This is why some of them are receptive to change, innovative ideas and have no viable policies to transform their states. With these citizens are kept at arm’s length by opacity and secrecy.

More so, our state public officers, often ask their family and friends to register company for the purpose contract and engage government as member of organized private sectors. Reports have shown how unregistered companies have also been awarded contracts. These excess become so difficult to check, because many of the states have not domesticate Public Procurement Law, and those who have passed it into law like Kwara state made attempt to establish State Public Procurement Agency. A lots of state governments did not also buy into the idea of freedom of information law to cover their secrecy. All these worked against the principles openness and accountability.

Our state governments need to understand that OGP when implemented effectively, will provide a win-win situation in terms of effective decision-making, value for money, a sense of democratic participation, ownership of the choices and decisions taken for both the state (government) actor and non-state actors (civil society, private sectors, etc.). This is because there will be strong culture of consultative communications and diverse ideas on how things could be done. This is capable of addressing wrong location of projects, untimely decision, camouflage engineer/contractors, and poor management of resource. It will ensure probity, and prevent all form of corruptions. While these will make the whole governance process an easy task, it will also prevent abuses of state power, hence, improve efficiency, and effectiveness of public servants.

Also when information is available, it will give citizens unparalleled access to the performance indicators, and this will allow them to compare costs and services and make informed decisions on any project initiated by the MDAs. Given this opportunity, OGP will be an indispensable means for genuine human development given citizen information that they need to hold government accountable and given them the opportunity in the decision that affect their lives, thereby making government to see their weaknesses and make amendment when necessary. It is hopeful that this could set the country on a path where trust will eventually come naturally.
Therefore, the incoming administrations especially the returning government should as matter of fact give the OGP a second thought. For those new on board, OGP will make their government more accessible, responsive and fulfil commitments. It is platform, to prevent being accused of inefficiency given high debt profile some of them will meet on ground; a platform to show commitment towards innovation and technological advancement.

Lastly, civil society groups need to collaborate with media to create more awareness about the benefit as well as the impact for generation to come. There is also need for high level advocacy- a non-confrontational approach toward making the state government buy into the idea. References can be made from the Kaduna, Niger, Edo, state etc. where OGP is working well for development.

Kareem Abdulrasaq
From Ilorin, Kareem21r@gmail.com