‘It’ll check wastage’ — senate committee speaks on amendment of fiscal responsibility law

The senate public accounts committee says it will work towards speedy passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (Amendment) Bill, 2007.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 is primarily designed to checkmate wastage and corruption.

Speaking during a recent visit by some civil society organisations (CSOs) — under the auspices of the Growth Initiatives for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT) Nigeria Project, led by OrderPaper Advocacy Initiative — Matthew Urhoghide, chairman of the senate committee, said passage of the FRA amendment bill will foster a reversal of poor revenue generation.

The lawmaker also commended the GIFT Nigeria project cluster members for their efforts at contributing towards improving the country’s public finance management systems.

Urhoghide also said there needs to be efforts to improve Nigeria’s standing on revenue generation in relation to the consolidated revenue fund (CRF).

“That is why we are talking about deficit. If the agencies of government charged with the responsibility of getting revenue were to actually get the due revenues into the consolidated revenue fund, we would have no issue with deficit,” he said.

“If all the provisions in FRA, 2007 were respected and agencies that are supposed to get revenue are doing it, we would not have any problem.

“Part of our functions is to ensure transparency, accountability in order to ensure value for money where agencies spend public funds. We do this through the office of the auditor-general of the federation.”

Speaking on the reason for the visit to the senate committee, MacDonald Ekemezie of the Centre for Transparency and Accountability (CTA), who led the delegation, spoke on the efforts of the GIFT Nigeria project, adding the project is committed to pushing for the passage of the FRA amendment bill before the end of the ninth assembly.

Ekemezie urged the national assembly to work towards speeding up work on the bill.

He also asked that there be collaborations with the senate committee on the GIFT project as part of efforts to achieve accountability and transparency in the country’s extractive industry.

The GIFT Nigeria project is being implemented with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement (SCALE) project.