In Jun, 2020, we discovered payments totalling N278bn without descriptions, N51bn paid into personal acts & other loopholes for abuse of public funds on the #OpenTreasury Portal.
As a result of this, @Nigeriagov set up a committee with a mandate to resolve these issues.
@BudgITng was nominated as a member of the Transparency Portal, Quality Assurance & Compliance Committee which also includes @ICPC_PE & @officialEFCC in response to our letter to the @OAuGF on the issues.
Since the committee's intervention, payments without description have reduced from N40.76bn with about 500 transactions in March to N601.3m with 44 transactions in October 2020.
Speaking of figures on the #OpenTreasury portal being different from those in the approved budget, the committee has mandated @FGN_GIFMIS to check the budget performance of MDAs to identify infractions and reflect all payments made by MDAs on the platform.
The committee has also organized a sensitisation meeting with all MDAs on the #OpenTreasury portal guidelines. @FGN_GIFMIS also activated its support structure for all MDAs to close up knowledge gaps.
As a member of the committee, @BudgITng will continue to update the public on progress made by the committe in resolving these issues and closing loopholes for corruption and abuse of public funds.
Critical issues that need @nassnigeria's attention
1. MISPLACED PRIORITIES
N17bn will be spent by govt officials on intl. travels & trainings that can be done virtually.
Whereas 38 Fed. Hospitals do not have allocations for medical supplies.
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The N64.75bn allocated for the construction of government buildings across all MDAs should be reviewed downwards, seeing that nearly 135000km of roads in Nigeria are untarred, obstructing the movement of goods and people.
Also, the N11.9bn capital allocation to the police formations and commands is quite small considering the dearth of equipment needed to provide security for almost 200m people and the poor state of police barracks.
BudgIT’s State of States report is a snapshot of the fiscal health of all 36 States in the country and it uses four metrics or stress tests to provide a fair overall Fiscal Sustainability Ranking of all the states.
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A previous graphic on the ability of states to meet their recurrent expenditure is hereby retracted.
According to Mr. Gabriel Okeowo, BudgIT’s CEO and Principal Lead, “No single metric, when isolated, provides a fair assessment of any state; and none of the tests we used evaluates state’s fiscals for insolvency.”
Get ready as we take a deep dive into the 2020 #StateOfStates report.
This 2020 edition analysed states' fiscal sustainability - as measured by their capacity to meet recurrent obligations - while also examining epidemic preparedness financing at the subnational level
SUBSIDY REMOVAL: BUDGIT CALLS FOR HOLISTIC REFORMS IN THE OIL SECTOR
We have always called for subsidy removal because it has been used as a conduit for corruption.
However, we are worried about President @MBuhari & @nigeriagov’s approach to the removal & the timing..
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...considering the devastating effects of #COVID19 on the economy and the rise in food prices.
While subsidy removal is inevitable, we expect @nigeriagov to earn Nigerians' trust and public support first by taking proactive measures including cutting government waste...
...to build citizens’ confidence in subsidy reforms.
Currently, the optics by the government give the impression that the country is not living on borrowed funds.
Reforms cannot begin with the citizens, but with the government cutting costs in light of the pandemic.