By Meletus EZE
Stakeholders in the economic sector on Tuesday called for transparency, accountability and public awareness in the implementation of budget in Nigeria.
The stakeholders made the call at meeting on budget performance and accountability, in Abuja.
The meeting, organised by CLEEN Foundation, a non-governmental organization, had “Monitoring Federal Government Budget Implementation: Performance and Accountability Issues in Nigeria’’ as theme.
Executive Director of the Foundation, Dr Benson Olugbuo, said a budget ought to be well-designed, effectively and efficiently implemented, adequately monitored and its performance well evaluated in a transparent manner.
Olugbuo said that the recent ranking of Nigeria by the Transparency International where the country’s rank actually decreased by nine spots, showed an increase in corruption in the polity.
“On a global barometer, Nigeria ranked 90th in the world and 23rd in Africa on budget transparency index out of 115 countries globally and 38 African countries in the 2017 Open Budget Index (OBI) survey released in February, 2018.
“The Open Budget Survey (OBS) is the world’s only independent, comparative assessment of the three pillars of public budget accountability – transparency, oversight and public participation.
“Nigeria’s score on the index dipped from 24 per cent in 2015 to 17 per cent, and currently ranks behind Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Liberia in Africa while South Africa has been ranked first alongside New Zealand globally.
“In Nigeria, the renewed conversation and effort by the media and non-state actors such as civil society organizations, for budget transparency deserves some commendation.’’
He said the Foundation was of the opinion that avoiding excessive, wasteful and corrupt budgetary spending and the mismanagement of the procurement process required high levels of transparency and accountability.
He pointed out that such processes should adhere to government-wide financial management and oversight practices, within a rigorously-observed policy and planning framework.
Ologbuo said Nigeria was looking for a budget implementation that was open, transparent, with citizens’ involvement through interaction between government agencies, the National Assembly and the people.
“I think it is a call for duty that we should elect those willing to represent us because we have realised that there is lack of capacity to conduct effective oversight.
“As 2019 is approaching, as electorate we should get our Permanent Voter Cards and vote those who are willing to represent us beyond constituency projects.
“Being a member of NASS goes beyond constituency projects, but ensuring that the dividends of democracy get to the people.
Mr Uadamen Ilevbaoji, Head of Tracka and Assistant Manager, BudgIT Foundation, in his presentation on “2017 Federal Constituency Projects in Nigeria: general overview’’ called for open data on constituency projects.
Ilevbaoji said open data on constituency projects would ensure citizen participation in contract awards via the provision of accurate details of all contracts placed in the public domain.
He said research by the organisation through Tracka, revealed that Nigerians at grassroots had little or no idea of government projects in their communities.
Tracka citizens’ engagement through online and offline engagement channels keep residents informed about government budgetary provisions in their communities.
Ilevbaoji identified challenges with constituency projects to include, under-delivery of projects and non-execution of projects.
“With reference to the items in the 2017 budget, 864 projects have been tracked, 416 have been completed, 241 are ongoing and 207 projects remain wilfully unexecuted.
“Collating information from Tracka’s Project Tracking Officers (PTOs) across the 20 states, we note that these projects were signed off and contractors got paid (some, if not all of their fees), with little or no follow-up by government authorities.”
Other challenges, according to him, were the use of substandard materials, contract inflation, citizens’ apathy, lack of constituency awareness, tax funded projects called donation, and conversion of public project to personal properties.
Ilevbaoji recommended that public officials should desist from tagging supplied materials and projects with their names for personal glory and political clout, saying “citizens should be aware of the actual sponsor of the project.”
