Despite World Bank’s N228.7bn incentive, 11 states fail to publish budget details

11 states have not published details of their 2019 budget despite a N228.7 billion programme by the World Bank to encourage public finance transparency in Nigeria.

The states are Lagos, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Imo, Nasarawa, Oyo, Rivers, Sokoto and Zamfara.

According to BudgIT, an advocacy platform, Kwara’s 2019 budget was taken down from the website after Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq (pictured), the new governor, was sworn in.

The World Bank had made $750 million available to states under the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) programme which was aimed at strengthening fiscal transparency, accountability and sustainability in Nigerian states.

The 36 state governments had submitted written expressions of interest to be a part of the programme after it was endorsed by the National Economic Council in March.

According to information made available on the World Bank’s website, the programme is a performance-based financing component for state governments.

The programme will cover the fiscal performance of states between 2018-2021.

“The program will provide performance-based financing on an annual basis to states which have been verified through the annual performance assessments as having complied with the annual eligibility criteria; and achieved the annual disbursement linked results,” a programme abstract on the World Bank’s website read.

In a statement released on its Medium page, BudgIT, said Imo, Zamfara and Sokoto have not published their budget documents since 2017.

“We must emphasise that Imo, Zamfara and Sokoto states have not published their budget documents since 2017, whereas Lagos State, which provides only a thumbnail of it, has a history of notoriously resisting attempts to uncover its financial dealings, thus embedding corruption.”

Gabriel Okeowo, BudgIT’s principal lead said: “This situation notwithstanding, BudgIT will not give in on its advocacy for transparency and accountability in Nigeria. We shall look more critically at the proactiveness in the disclosure of financial information by Nigerian states as well as their compliance with the Freedom of Information Act”.