World Bank exposes Uzodimma on fiscal performance in governance
Sometime in 2017, the world apex bank introduced a performance-based programme that would make them monitor and rate the fiscal performance of states.
To that effect, the world bank entered into a mutual agreement with the Federal Government which gave birth to a programme known as The State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Programme.
The rationale behind the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Programme is informed by the current serious fiscal challenges faced by the states with many unable to pay the backlog of salary arrears of several months due to poor fiscal governance occasioned by the high cost of governance, profligacy poor revenue drive amongst others.
Most states with the exception of a few have weak fiscal transparency and accountability structures characterized by unpublished budgets & financial statements, lack of timely budget implementation reports, very high budget deviation (between 30% to 55%) and their Citizens are never engaged in the budget process. State Executives believe they are not accountable to the citizens and hence do not need their input in major policy decision-making processes particularly budget processes where everybody is kept in the dark.
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This Programme was WorldBank’s strategy for rating the fiscal governance of all 36 States of Nigeria so as to encourage fiscal transparency and integrity by rewarding such states with grants and/or technical support.
Hence under the ‘Program for Result’ (PforR), states that meet the ranking criteria will be rewarded with a performance-based grant, whereas those that fail to meet the criteria lose the reward.
The PforR component is ex-ante open to 36 states and FCT for participation. However, in order, to be eligible to access the annual performance-based grants, states must achieve the Eligibility Criteria (EC) for the performance year. The Program allows for different entry points by states. States not achieving the EC in Year 1 won’t access Year 1 performance-based grants; however, they can aim to join the Program in Year 2 or 3.
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