Reports have it that each of the 42 ministers took turn to sign the agreement at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa.
``I read all kinds of thing in the media that: the president wants to assess the ministers so that he would know who would go and who would stay. That is not the purpose of this.
``We would have done it probably in the first week when we came on board, but the key thing is that we have given ourselves points that we think we will get at, we believe that if we get at those points or even if we achieve 70 per cent of that, at least it will be better off for our own country.
``I am quite pleased that all the ministers have completed the forms.’’
In his remarks after the signing, Jonathan refuted media reports that the objective of the Performance Contract System was to sack some ministers.
He said the exercise was to ensure enhanced performance, transparency and accountability in governance.
Specifically, he said that the Performance Contracting System was geared towards improving performance and delivering quality and timely services to the citizenry.
Jonathan said the system would also improve productivity and instill a greater sense of accountability for effective service delivery.
``I want to assure every one of you who has taken part in the exercise that this is not a witch-hunt targeted at anybody.
``It is to remind all of us, from president to directors-general, to advisers and to other aides that we are representatives of the Nigerian people, and we are accountable to them at all times.
``I had stated clearly during the inauguration of the Federal Executive Council that ministers are expected to be accountable, productive, transparent and focused,’’ he explained further.
The president noted that government could no longer rely on the media for the assessment of it performance and activities.
He said the media had been politicised and compromised and its assessments were biased and no longer reliable.
``Before, the media used to be the voice of the ordinary people, but now, the media is the voice of those who own the media houses and those who owned the media houses have private jets and those who own private jets are not ordinary people.
``So the media is now the voice of the powerful people. So, we have to have a way of assessing ourselves.’’
The president underscored the need for his office and that of the vice-president to be covered in the assessment processes.
He said though they were saddled with the responsibilities of supervising the ministers, there should be parameters to be used in measuring the performances of the two top offices.
On the perceived rivalry between ministers and ministers of state in some ministries, Jonathan said he expected every minister to be abreast with all activities of his or her ministry.
``One key thing is that I expect every minister in a ministry to know everything about that ministry.
``The minister must know everything happening in the ministry, the minister of state must know everything happening in the ministry, just like the Permanent Secretary, will know everything happening in the ministry.
``If Minister A does not know what Minister B is doing and Minister B does not know what Minister A is doing, but the Permanent Secretary knows everything that all of you are doing, the Permanent Secretary becomes a boss of the two ministers and the Permanent Secretary can use your heads to hit yourselves and just laugh at you.
``I expect that if the main minister travels and I need information, I should call the minister of state and that minister of state must give the information about that ministry.
``If the minister of state cannot give the information about that ministry, then something is fundamentally wrong either with the two of them or with one of them.
``If the minister of state travels in a ministry where we have clear responsibilities, if I call the main minister to give me information, I expect the minister to give me the information on that ministry.’’
The president directed that the process of signing the performance agreement be replicated throughout the system, with ministers signing with their permanent secretaries and heads of parastatal agencies.
The permanent secretaries would also in turn sign with the directors in the ministries and with all the workers.
Earlier in a presentation, Minister of National Planning, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, had said that the Performance Contract System was a management tool to help public sector and policy makers to define responsibilities and expectations in achieving goals.
He said the system would assist the government to measure performance of MDAs in a fair, objective and comprehensive manner and would create a results-oriented government.
Usman also recalled that he had met with all his colleagues to set out the performance indicators for the assessment of each Ministry.
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