World Bank disburses N362bn to states under STFAS
The World Bank says the sum of $871m has been distributed to states in Nigeria under its States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (STFAS) from the $1.45bn available for the programme. Speaking at the Public Presentation of our Subnational Audit Efficacy Index 2021 by the Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI), the team lead of STFAS, […]
The World Bank says the sum of $871m has been distributed to states in Nigeria under its States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (STFAS) from the $1.45bn available for the programme.
Speaking at the Public Presentation of our Subnational Audit Efficacy Index 2021 by the Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI), the team lead of STFAS, Debbie Isser, said the results of the project was has led to increased transparency in states in their budget disclosure.
Isser noted that the annual assessment of results on compliance with audit laws necessitated the use of monitoring incentives to support coordination and states sustainability plan in continuing in the programme.
She said in 2018 and 2019, 22 out of 36 states published their annual financial statements by December 2020 with the publication of their quarterly financial compliance audit for funds that were available for COVID recovery purposes.
“Based on the results achieved, we compare them to the capacity of each state in compliance and ensure a positive sense of competition among the states in order to encourage and institutionalise the basic process of accountability. So far and based on two rounds a total of $871m has been dispatched to the states out of the total of $1.45bn available. The results we are seeing are exceeding expectations so we have to go back for additional finances.”
She added that audit plays a critical role in state participation, leading to 24 states passing state audit laws that guarantee the operation and financial independence of the other laws.
However, the Deputy Country Director of MacArthur, Oladayo Olaide said with improvement in transparency, there is the need for more accountability in states during procurement.
The Executive Director, PLSI, Olusegun Elemo, said the index report disclosed that only 11 out of 36 states assessed conducted either compliance or performance audit on public expenditure in 2020.