The failure to publish the Audit Report in a timely manner and non-disclosures of broad parameters of fiscal policies continue to affect Nigeria’s ranking on budget transparency. A new survey by the International Budget Partnership has shown.
The Open Budget Survey (OBS) 2019 on budget transparency, ranked Nigeria 97th position. This is from a global survey of 117 countries. According to the survey, Nigeria scored 21% in Budget Transparency, 22% in Public Participation, and 55% in Budget Oversight out of 100.
In Africa, it also ranked Nigeria low scoring (21/100) among its peers, coming behind Ghana (45), Sierra Leone (39), Liberia (38), and Sao Tome and Principe (24) in budget openness and transparency.
Open Budget Survey (OBS) uses methodology such as public access to information. It also assesses how the central government raises and spends public resources. It assesses the online availability, timeliness, and comprehensiveness of eight key budget documents. The weighted indicators are used to score each country on a scale of 0 to 100.
What Changed?
The survey acknowledged Nigeria has increased the availability of budget information. These include the availability of citizens budget online, more details on the enacted Budget. However, the country dropped from a transparency score of 24 in 2015 to 21 in 2019. The 2019 score, however, is an improvement from 2017 when it scored 17.
There are recurring components that are drawbacks of Nigeria in the transparency, participation and accountability assessments. These include the untimely publication of the Audit Report online and mid-year review documents. Also, the in-year reports which were published timely in 2010 through 2012 have ceased to be timely. Another key document dropping the score for Nigeria is the Pre-budget statement. This has also remained untimely or at best, produced for internal use only.
Experts speak
Speaking on the survey, Mr Olusegun Elemo, the Executive Director at Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI), said the survey confirmed the bottleneck Nigeria face in the budgetary process, even though the Federal Government had reviewed the timeline and passed 2020 budget at the earliest time.
“We also know other components of the budget cycle need attention. For instance, the latest audit report is 2017, and we are already in mid-2020”.
“If you look at Kenya and South Africa, they are already working on the 2019 budget audit report, and that’s why Nigeria will always rank low among peers,” he said.
Mr Elemo said the picture is not all negative, but Nigeria needs to improve accountability by publishing audit reports timely. He stressed that the parliament must review promptly and make recommendations publicly.
Charles Ofomata, Program Officer at the Centre for Social Justice, said opacity in the budget process makes Nigeria lose out among the comity of nations, even in aid and grants.
Citizens’ participation is key for transparency and accountability. The more they (government) give citizens a platform to participate, the more workable budget we have. Citizens should be involved from the planning to the implementation stage. With this, they know more about what and how the government intends to run the budget.”
Mr Ofomata believes there are rooms for improvements as more citizens are becoming aware of what is happening and ready to make input in governance.
Open Budget Survey
The Open Budget Survey helps local civil society assess and confer with their government on the reporting and use of public funds.
Several local and international organisations have called for open budget processes. Yet, there little or no major changes to budget transparency since 2015. In 2015, Nigeria’s open budget transparency scored below 25%. Last year, the country increased the availability of budget information by publishing online and more breakdowns to the enacted budget.
The International Budget Partnership called for improved budget transparency, improved oversight functions, and audits on the part of the National Assembly and the Auditor-General for the Federation. IBP says should consider this amidst the launch of massive spending to address the COVID-19 pandemic.