Improving citizens’ welfare through public sector governance reform

In response to the growing concern for good governance and effective financial management in the public service across the country, the federal government initiated and received a credit facility from the International Development Association (IDA) and World Bank towards the cost of implementing Public Sector Governance Reform and Development Project (PSGRDP) within a five year […]

In response to the growing concern for good governance and effective financial management in the public service across the country, the federal government initiated and received a credit facility from the International Development Association (IDA) and World Bank towards the cost of implementing Public Sector Governance Reform and Development Project (PSGRDP) within a five year period from 2012 to 2017 in selected states in the country.

Among the benefiting states of Abia, Adamawa, Kebbi, Ekiti, Imo, Plateau and Niger, the project is designed around five components which include public financial management reform, human resource management and capacity development, monitoring and evaluation system development, improvement in public financial management and procurement reforms and scaling up selected activities from tier one states.

Niger is expected to commence the implementation of only component ‘D’ of the project aimed at putting in place legal and regulatory frameworks for public financial management and procurement reforms with the overall objective of improving transparency, accountability and quality in public financial management and human resources.

Strengthening governance through management  

The project’s key indicators are that state government agencies are audited annually and report submitted to state assemblies within six months of the proceeding financial year in each participating state, reduce level of deviation between actual budgetary provision and actual expenditure in each participating state, ensure that growth in the percentage of the annual collection of projected internally generated revenue is ensured and sustained, improvement in the percentage of public contracts above threshold awarded via a competitive open process, reduce discrepancy between personnel database and payroll data base in each participating state and growth in the number of MDAs that submit annual reports with updated data on agreed result indicators in each participating state.

Niger State for instance last week commenced the training for the State Financial Management Information System (SFMIS) users for successful implementation of the project objectives. In his welcome address at the occasion, the state coordinator of the project, Sirajo Sa’id, said the initiative was informed by the need to check the inherent damage that bad governance and ineffective financial management has hitherto wrought on the socio-economic growth of society and the upliftment of the general wellbeing of the citizenry.

He said in the state, the project had achieved most of its expected deliverables based on the outcome indicators. Among the achievements according to him, are; ensuring the adoption of revised procedures for commitment control and payment authorization/approval limits, introduction of new classification codes used to prepare annual budgets in line with International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), development of Medium Term Sector Strategy for six sectors in the state.

Others are procurement legislation enacted and regulatory unit established in the state while procurement tools such as standard bidding documents are developed, produced and disseminated for use by procurement officers in the MDAs.

He explained that the pending matters before the project’s duration elapses in October are the clearing of backlog of external audit reports with the legislature and the implementation of simple/basic financial management information system in the treasuries and budget offices.

The state Commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Ibrahim Balarabe, acknowledged that in the strive to achieve good quality financial management, the state was experiencing some challenges that impact negatively on the efficiency and effectiveness of public financial management.

Among these challenges according to him, were that information system supporting various economic and financial management functions, especially those for budgeting, accounting and treasury operations and management, are fragmented while data from various sources were often inconsistent and more often than not unreliable as well as the absence of an integrated management information system that would operationally bring economic and financial management in the  state under a common management information system.

Others, he also pointed out, were delays in consolidation of financial reports owing to the manual nature of operations, inadequate budgetary control leading to misclassification of expenditures and extensive time spent on reconciliation of budget lines and inadequate commitment control system allowing for unbudgeted expenditures.

“To address these identified challenges, the state, with the support of the World Bank, has engaged the services of vendors to supply, install, integrate, test, train and commission a FMIS software, related hardware as well as provide support services under a turnkey arrangement that would enhance human resource and payroll management, planning and budgeting, budget execution, accounting and reporting,” he noted.

 He expressed optimism that the implementation of SFMIS would therefore lead the state to achieve improved recording and processing of government’s financial transactions that allow prompt and efficient access to reliable financial data leading to enhanced transparency and accountability of the executive to the legislature, the general public and other external agencies, strengthened financial controls, facilitating a full and updated picture of commitments and expenditure on a continuous basis and providing adequate information to ensure improved efficiency and effectiveness of government’s financial management on current and past performances which assist budgetary control and improved economic forecasting, planning and budgeting.

The state’s Head of Service, Alhaji Yabagi Sule, commended the World Bank and the State Public Sector Governance Reform and Development Project for the laudable achievements, particularly in the areas of public financial management reforms geared towards improving service delivery and value for money.

“We are aware of the absence of an integrated management information system that will operationally bring economic and financial management in Niger State under a common Management Information System (MIS) while data from various sources are often inconsistent and more often than not unreliable.

“It suffices here to state that this giant stride of opting for a design of a business process that would provide an integrated off-the-shelf solution under the SIFMIS project can best be described as timely,” he noted.

He said he was particularly happy that the payroll module is a key component of the project, saying over the years, attempts had been made by preceding governments to freeze the widened gap between the personnel and payroll data bases but the efforts kept yielding minimal results.

He expressed the belief that this module, when holistically utilized, would achieve the desired results required by the administration to close the deviation so as to have more funds for implementation of projects that would directly improve on the lives of the populace.