TheCable

BudgIT, a civic-tech organisation, says Jigawa emerged top in the maiden edition of its fiscal transparency, accountability, and sustainability ranking for states.

The organisation disclosed this on Thursday in its recent report, titled, ‘States Fiscal Transparency League (SFTL) Q1 2023′.

TheCable understands that the SFTL initiative builds on the recently concluded World Bank State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability (SFTAS) programme.

The World Bank SFTAS aimed at promoting fiscal transparency and accountability in public resource management.

According to the BudgIT report, Jigawa state topped the overall Q1 2023 fiscal transparency, accountability, and sustainability ranking; indicating that the fundamentals of the state, compared to others in the country, are more prudently managed.

The civic-tech firm said Jigawa scored 90 out of the set 100-point marker. The state is followed by Ondo (78/100), and Kano state (77/100).

Both Adamawa and Osun states ranked 76 points each.

In a statement signed by Nancy Odimegwu, BudgIT’s communications associate, the organisation said the report was designed to sustain the gains of the World Bank’s SFTAS.

“The SFTL program is a quarterly assessment focused on various aspects, including proposed budget, approved budget, citizens’ budget, budget implementation reports (BIR), audit report, e-procurement portal, medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF), Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, accountant general’s report/financial statement and states’ functional website/fiscal repository,” the statement reads.

“In line with the criteria above, we conducted an assessment of all 36 states in Nigeria for the first quarter of 2023. From our findings, nine states were progressive as they adhered to the SFTAS guidelines, 24 states performed averagely, while three states had poor performance.”

BudgIT, therefore, encouraged subnationals to enable functional up-to-date websites to promote transparency.

“Through this statement, BudgIT is notifying all state governments, civil society organisations, development partners, media, and the general public of the SFTL programme,” the firm said.

“We also implore all subnational governments to enable functional and up-to-date state websites to facilitate the extraction of required information for the assessment.

“State governments and stakeholders are also urged to respond to requests for information promptly. We believe the states fiscal transparency league initiative will strengthen our democracy and bridge the gap between the government and its citizens.”

According to Iyanuoluwa Bolarinwa, BudgIT’s acting lead for open government and institutional partnership, upholding the gains of the World Bank’s SFTAS programme would help subnational governments gain the trust of their people.

It would enable them to attract foreign investment, support economic plans and upscale the well-being of citizens.

“This is particularly important in this era where many states have had a change of government,” he said.