Director-general of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), Dasuki Arabi, has disclosed that all federal government transactions are now fully digitised through public financial management reforms.
Consequently, federal ministries, departments, and agencies can no longer use manual processes to make payments.
Arabi said this at an interactive media session where he presented the reform scorecard of the Bureau.
“As I’m talking to you today, no Nigerian federal public service agency or ministry uses pen, paper, or biro to make payments for services, for contracts by any citizen, by any company. So that has been digitalised 100 per cent,” he said.
The Director-general linked the shift away from cash and manual payments to reforms of government financial systems, arguing that digitisation had increased public visibility into how public funds are released and used.
According to him, the change has also tightened control over government resources because “people now have the space to know how much has been released, how much has been utilised, who are the beneficiaries of this.”
Arabi said the bureau, established in 2004, was created to initiate, drive, implement, and monitor public service reforms, adding that although other institutions could also initiate reforms, they were expected to report back to BPSR for monitoring and evaluation.
He said the bureau’s work was guided by the National Strategy on Public Service Reforms, which he described as the country’s reform “tracker” and the coordinating plan for reforms carried out from 2004 to date.
According to him, part of the bureau’s work over the years had been to strengthen government institutions by setting benchmarks and standards for MDAs, including pushing them to improve their online presence and citizen engagement channels.
He said the bureau developed a scorecard to rank MDA websites and worked with other agencies to harmonise the basic structure of government websites, while allowing institutions to retain their unique identities.
Behind the website reforms, he said, was a requirement that MDAs must have functional websites, telephone lines, and interactive portals that allow citizens to engage with government, request information, and receive feedback.
“We say every MDA must have an interactive portal for freedom of information on their website, so that citizens can ask questions, can interact, can get feedback immediately from ministries, departments, and agencies of government,” he added.
Arabi said the bureau also worked with anti-corruption agencies and civil society to develop what he called a Transparency and Integrity Index to assess MDA performance, including the extent to which they publish procurement and recruitment information.
He said the expectation was that procurement details and other public data should be available online because citizens have a right to access such information.
He also linked the bureau’s reforms to the Treasury Single Account, which he described as a BPSR-initiated reform that provides the government with a clearer, real-time view of inflows into the national treasury.
He added that authorities could also track beneficiaries once allocations were made by the Minister of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.
