Prioritise prompt upload of budgets on websites, BudgIT tells states

BudgIT, a civic-tech organisation, has called on state governments to prioritise fiscal transparency by promptly uploading approved budgets on their official websites.

Iyanuoluwa Bolarinwa, head of open government and institutional partnership (OGIP) at BudgIT, said this during the #ThursdayTalks programme on X.

The programme is an initiative of Enough is Enough Nigeria (EiE), a civil society organisation “committed to instituting a culture of good governance and accountability through active citizenship”.

The programme is supported by BudgIT with TheCable as its media partner.

This month’s edition of #ThursdayTalks discusses fiscal transparency, accountability and sustainability (SFTAS) programme of the states.

The SFTAS was launched in collaboration with the federal government in 2018 and ended in 2022. 

In July 2023, BudgIT launched the Fiscal Transparency League initiative report to track the SFTAS performance of states.

Commenting on the report, Bolarinwa raised concerns over the inaccessibility of government websites, adding that states must be conscious and ensure all documents are updated.

“According to the agreement between states and SFTAS, which was the World Bank programme, there were specific dates that states need to put in mind towards releasing the document,” he said.

“We are not trying to shame anybody or states but to ensure they stay conscious and at alert to ensure all of these things are updated.

“What we have done so far is to ensure that we are very fair with our scores and rankings as documents are linked to these rankings. States sometimes come around to upload these things but they don’t do it as at when due.

“What we have ensured is to grade it, if it comes by end of January, you will get a score but it won’t be the full mark.

“We made public our methodology and one thing we realize is that a lot of states have financial documents and not audit documents, and when you say financial document, it’s the one from accountant general’s office while audit document is from the auditor general’s office.

“What we want to see is not just the audit documents from the local government, we want to see financial note, income statement, balance sheet, auditor’s name, signature and so on.

“We want to see the documents that dive into the audit of the state. About the political will, we are trying to maintain a possibility of having active citizens who are able to contribute to this discourse.”

Sunday Odeh, director of consolidated accounts, accountant-general’s office in Lokoja, Kogi state, said BudgIT needs to “restructure the methodology to be certain of what we want from the audit report”.

“Audit report is a voluminous work that covers the entire finance over three years and when you are talking about audit report, there is audit report, management report and so when you say you want audit, be more precise as that would help states too,” Odeh said.