OPEN BUDGET: RIVERS STATE LOOSES OUT OF THE SHARING OF OVER N43 BILLION
OPEN BUDGET: RIVERS STATE LOOSES OUT OF THE SHARING OF OVER N43 BILLION
WHEN Nongovernmental Organizations and civil society actors including our Executive Director, Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface advocate that the Rivers State Government should publish its annual budgets, financial statements, etc, online under the Open Budget Alliance Initiative, the government did not listen. Some other State governments did not also embrace the practice which is rewarded with cash by the World Bank Group.
Recently, the Federal Government of Nigeria had shared USD$120.6million it received to 24 State Governments with Rivers State not among the benefiting States because of its lack of fiscal transparency and accountability to the citizens on budget and financials records as a government.
Kaduna State achieved the highest number of results (nine) in the rating of State government transparency and accountability in Nigeria and got the highest share of the money with N3.960 billion, while Katsina and Benue got the lowest amount of N540 million each as Federal Government disbursed the sum of N43,416,000,000.00 ($120.6 million) to 24 states.
The fund is through a performance-based grant under the World Bank-Assisted States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Programme-for-Results. SFTAS is wholly-financed with a loan of $750 million from the International Development Association (IDA), a member of the World Bank Group. On the Eligibility Criteria (EC), the minister said that States had to meet in order to be eligible to receive any grants included: the online publication of the approved annual budget and audited financial statement for the previous year.
The 24 states were said to have achieved: improved financial reporting and budget reliability; increased openness and citizens’ engagement in the budget process; improved cash management and reduced revenue leakages through the implementation of State Treasury Single Account (TSA); strengthened Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) collection; biometric registration and Bank Verification Number (BVN) used to reduce payroll fraud.
The 24 beneficiary states who were: Abia, Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Sokoto, Taraba and Yobe states.
This amount is very important in this era of corona virus disease (#COVID19) Pandemic that resources is needed to meet financial needs. Thus, Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC) calls on Rivers State and other states yet to embrace the open budget initiative to do so and be part of the 2021 grant from the World Bank Group.
