StateofStates: Only 15 Nigerian States Published 2018 Budgets, Says BudgIT

Civic tech transparency group- BudgIT says the level of transparency among states in Nigeria is still very low with only 15 states or 41.66% of the country’s 36 federating units have made their 2018 spending plan (budget) assessible to the public, even with the year half-way gone.

BudgIT, which is currently conducting a campaign to examine the level of transparency in through online assessment on the availability of public finance documents in State government domains, lamented that such secrecy is what breeds corruption and mediocre performance in states.

It listed the 15 compliant state with available budget documents for 2018 as: Borno, Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Ondo, Plateau and Yobe.

Even so, BudgIT, established with the aim of holding government accountable and creating an active citizenry to improve governance, added that only those of 13: Borno, Delta Edo, Ekiti, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Nasarawa, Ondo, Plateau and Yobe are sufficiently detailed.

Lagos and Kwara, according to the statement by Abiola Afolabi, Communications Lead at BudgIT, “provided a summary of their budgets on the government websites. The document provided lacks actionable detail with which citizens can hold their elected officials to account.

“Our organisation would like to state explicitly that Lagos and Kwara States have a history of opacity over the years and are notorious for resisting attempts by citizens to pry into the affairs of the state.”

The #StateofStates advocacy, it stressed, continues to critically look at the proactiveness in the disclosure of information in the Nigerian States and their compliance with the Freedom of Information law where applied. Transparency in the States continues the downward swing as governments persist in denying citizens the access to relevant information.

While it is commendable that the States released full budget documents with details as presented to the State House of Assembly to the public, BudgIT stressed the need for such to be published within a reasonable timeframe.

This, it continued, would enable the people engage their legislators during the budget debate, adding that “any State keen on citizen participation in governance should publish full details of the proposal with 48 hours of submission to the legislature.

The fundamental requirement of good governance is transparency, and the least form of transparency is the availability of public finance information, BudgIT added, quoting Abayomi Akinbo, its Project Manager, as saying that “information on government spending from the public purse should be provided to the people by the government through various communication channels; one of which is the official state website. However, this is not the case with State governments in Nigeria.”

Specifically, the organisation argued that budget should go beyond the release of pictures and stories of projects executed, with “citizens informed of project cost to enable them to decide if the project delivered optimum value for money spent. Nigeria battles the current scourge of corruption due to the prevailing practice of opacity at federal, state and local levels. No country achieves transparency and accountability without the active participation of citizens in the management of its resources. Taxpayers must hold government accountable to enable them to enjoy the dividends of democracy.

BudgIT called on the people of non-compliant states of: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Adamawa, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Cross River, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kebbi, Niger, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, and Zamfara “to demand their budgets be made open and accessible to ensure the society works in their interest. We equally call on all Nigerian citizens to keep an eye on the funds and follow the money. Across the world, transparency has been noted to foster citizens trust in government and increasing investor confidence. States with partially detailed budgets documents in public domains must provide details of capital projects being executed for the fiscal year.”

https://investdata.com.ng/2018/06/stateofstates-15-nigerian-states-published-2018-budgets-says-budgit/#more