Ahead of its forthcoming NGF conference on fiscal sustainability scheduled to hold in November, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum Secretariat, NGFS, has disclosed that state governors’ contribution to the nation’s economic recovery has been tremendous.
The disclosure was made in a presentation by an Economist at the NGFS, Mr. David Nabena when the FSP technical committee met at the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja.
The FSP committee comprises of officials of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and the Federal Ministry of Finance. The meeting was to review the 22-core action points of the FSP from its last workshop held in April.
According to the NGFS findings, “the action point with the highest percentage of implementation is that of Public Expenditure Reform, which recorded 69 per cent success, the NGFS Economist, Nabena disclosed.
He however thinks more can be done by states to get the country out of the doldrums. Other areas with encouraging results according to him were in public revenue reforms in which the states scored 63 per cent and 54 per cent for debt management reforms.
“These are laudable goals, according to many economists, but above all it shares a very special affinity with the Open Government Partnership OGP which carries with it huge financial relief for governments that are able to meet its conditions.”, he said
Nabena noted that the purpose of the meeting was to share findings of the 22-core action points of the FSP from the workshop held in April, as well as acquaint the ministry of the plans of the NGF Secretariat going forward.
During his presentation, Nabena noted that around 15 out of the 22 action points of the FSP have been implemented by most States, stating however that, this finding was contained in the states’ self-assessment reports. He also highlighted accountability and transparency as the actions with the weakest implementation status.
Even here, Nabena explained, there is light at the end of the tunnel because there is a 44 per cent success in implementation despite the fact that many states find the adoption of IPSAS cumbersome, expensive and challenging.
In conclusion, the NGF Economist regretted that the picture is not all rosy for governance at the subnational level. In many states that work was conducted, Nabena stated that there is no consolidated debt service account or sinking fund, nine states do not have an active and functional website, seven states have not yet concluded their biometric staff audit, and up to 31 states have recorded success in the internal audit of their accounts. “Only sixteen states” Nabena added, “have an efficiency unit.”
Responding, the Director, Home Finance at the Finance Ministry Mrs. Olubunmi Siyanbola congratulated the Forum for the brilliant and thorough work that they had done and also added that the figures given by the Forum is not far from that of the Consultants they deployed for the same reason.
Olubunmi Siyanbola also disclosed that six six Consultants have been sent to the different geo-political zones to make a report on the activities of the states around the 22 action points of the FSP and their success stories so far.
She added that the way forward will be determined when all the consultants are back from the field with the complete report.
However, at a glance, the consultants recorded a 42 per cent level of implementation across the 36 states, other percentages are 60 per cent for Public expenditure reforms as against 69 per cent from the NGF, 56 per cent for PFM which is the same with what the Forum recorded and 35 per cent level of implementation for public debt as against 54 per cent recorded by the NGF.
