Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa, is lagging behind Ghana, Mali, Kenya, Tanzania and Sierra Leone in budget processes and information dissemination, according to the latest Open Budget Survey Tracker, managed by the International Budget Partnership (IBP) in association with Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC).
The survey, which is published every two years, says that about eight essential budget documents should be made publicly available in a timely manner so as to make the citizens have good appreciation of governance and public spending.
It listed the parameters to include open budget index, pre-budget statement, in-year report, mid-year, end year and auditor’s reports.
According to the survey report, “Budgets are a government’s most powerful tool to meet the needs and priorities of a country and its people. Civil society organisations, legislators, auditors, the media, and the broader public need timely budget information to hold the government accountable for how it uses public resources. Without such scrutiny, the government can make bad choices on unpopular or inappropriate programmes, waste money, and open the door to corruption.”
The survey monitors whether the government is releasing essential information on how it raises and spends public money in line with established international standards of transparency and accountability manner throughout the budget cycle.
“A new online tool for tracking government transparency around the world has revealed the government of Nigeria needs to do more to keep the public informed on how it manages the country’s finances,” says the report.
According to the report, Nigeria recorded 16 points in open budget index against 50, 49, 47 points by Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Tunisia, among others.
Nigeria was said to be also deficient in pre-budget statement, in-year and audit reports while her mid-year report is for internal use only. However, other African countries made appreciable progress in these areas by making the documents public.
According to the survey report, “The IBP’s Open Budget Survey (OBS) is the only independent, regular, and comparative assessment of budget transparency and participation world-wide. This rigorous, comprehensive assessment is conducted every two years and measures the amount of budget information a country’s central government makes publicly available, whether it engages citizens in budget processes, and the strength of formal oversight institutions.”
The OBS tracker monitors on monthly basis one of the factors included in the Open Budget Index as to whether governments are at least releasing the eight key budget documents to the public. Though the Open Budget Index score is the gold standard measure, the tracker allows for tracking a country’s progress on meeting basic international standards for the publication of budget documents.
