Nigeria Records Best Performance in Global Budget Survey

Ndubuisi Francis

Nigeria has posted its best performance in the 2021 Open Budget Survey (OBS), released by the International Budget Partnership (IBP).

The survey which was conducted in 120 countries saw Nigeria taking a leap from the previous 21 spot in 2019, to 45, improving by 24 points in budget transparency and public participation.

This was revealed at the official launch of the Open Budget Survey 2021 Report, which was unveiled yesterday in Abuja.

Nigeria, Sierra Leone and The Gambia made the biggest improvement in the Open Budget Index, specifically on transparency, public participation and institutional oversight among 120 countries assessed.

The OBS is a global, independent, comparative and regular assessment of transparency, institutional oversight and public participation in public budgets in 120 countries, and it is conducted bi-annually.

Presenting the report, the Senior Programme Manager, International Budget Partnership, Sally Torbert, said Nigeria’s performance was the second highest improvement worldwide.

On the survey, Torbert said: “The basis for the OBS is 145 score indicators based on international practices and standards.

“These indicators measure the public availability and comprehensiveness of the yearly budget documents, the role and effectiveness of our oversight institutions and opportunities for public participation in the budget process.

“We undertake a rigorous research process that is led by civil society researchers and subjected to peer review in that area. It has a long standing partnership with the budget and was led on the research proposal since 2020.

“We also invite national governments to comment on the draft results and we were grateful for the detailed feedback received from the budget office of Nigeria. “Importantly, the survey is more than a research; it is a tool for civic engagement and an exercise of citizens. And it documents the progress made in open budgeting practices and provides a roadmap for where countries can improve.”

Noting that Nigeria’s improvement to the 45 spot was commendable, she however, stated that the country needed to accelerate progress on budget transparency and participation, and aim to hit the 61st spot.

 “This shows that even as Nigeria has made much progress this round, there is still possibilities to go further. The OBS sets the benchmark for sufficient information at 61 out of 100. And there are ways that Nigeria could continue upward trend as seen in this round and aim to hit that benchmark and even surpass within just a few years.

“So here are some reforms that could be considered to catapult Nigeria into the ranks of the countries that meet the benchmark for sufficient information. First is enhancing the budget proposal with additional information.

“It could be simple things such as spending trends overtime so you can see how spending administrative sector is changing over the years.

“It also could include performance indicators and targets and what the government hopes to achieve with public spending.

She said the IBP would do whatever was required to encourage Nigeria to hit the 61st spot.

Responding to a question on the country’s audit process, Torbert regretted that it was an area Nigeria needed to work very hard, adding that audit reports take over three years to be unveiled.

According to her, this should be reduced to at least 18 months.

She said: “Audit is an incredibly important part of the oversight of the government budget. Those audit reports are where that is documented, and the auditor general gives their recommendations and their findings when they review the government financial statements.

“So yes, those reports are a really critical oversight mechanism for public spending. So in some cases, it’s parliament who really needs to ensure that the auditor general has a strong legal framework for when and how they should be releasing their audit report at the end of the year.

“In many countries, it starts with parliament, having both a clear policy, a clear legal framework and also then holding the government to account when the parliament receives the audit report every year for discussion.

“They are the main recipients of that report. When that happens, they can ask is this published? Is this available? So, I think there’s work to be done probably by the auditor general but also within parliament to really ensure that that document gets into the public domain.”

In his address at the event, the Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, Mr. Ben Akabueze expressed optimism that Nigeria would surpass the performance when the 2022 OBS is conducted.

He said, “Government has over the past several years undertaken a number of reforms in the public finance management (PFM) space which have culminated in the significant improvements we can now report.

“Nigeria posted its best performance in the open budget survey, improving by 24 points for transparency in the latest Open Budget Survey.

“We remain committed to all the different moving parts of our PFM reform agenda. Central to this is our bullish domestic revenue mobilisation effort as well as efficiency in revenue and expenditure management.

“We have been privileged to have some committed development partners working with us over the years on various parts of our reform programmes.”

According to him, the Open Government Partnership is currently working on its third National Action Plan, adding that achieving government’s reform agenda requires bold, decisive and urgent actions, some of which may entail short-term pain but medium-/long-term gains.