BudgIT launches State Fiscal Transparency League (SFTL), releases Q1 assessment report

BudgIT, a leading civic-tech organization advocating for accountability, transparency, and effective service delivery in Nigeria, has launched its States Fiscal Transparency League (SFTL).

The SFTL initiative builds on the recently concluded World Bank’s State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability (SFTAS) Program, which promoted fiscal transparency and facilitated accountability in public resource management.

Recall that the World Bank developed SFTAS (States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability), a four-year program to support the government’s objective and encourage a common set of fiscal behavior aimed at fiscal transparency, accountability, and sustainability. Based on this, BudgIT’s States Fiscal Transparency League initiative is designed to sustain the gains of the World Bank’s SFTAS by tracking how well states maintain fiscal transparency, accountability, accessibility, and effective public finance management.

The SFTL program is a quarterly assessment focused on various aspects, including Proposed Budget, Approved Budget, Citizens’ Budget, Budget Implementation Reports (BIR), Audit Report, eProcurement Portal, Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, Accountant General’s Report/Financial Statement and States’ Functional Website/Fiscal Repository.

In line with the criteria above, we conducted an assessment of all 36 states in Nigeria for the first quarter of 2023. From our findings, nine states were progressive as they adhered to the SFTAS guidelines, 24 states performed averagely, while three states had poor performance.

According to Iyanuoluwa Bolarinwa, BudgIT’s Ag. Lead for Open Government and Institutional Partnership, “upholding the gains of the World Bank’s State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability (SFTAS) Program will help subnational governments gain the trust of their people, attract foreign investment, support economic plans and upscale the well-being of citizens. “This is particularly important in this era where many states have had a change of government,” he said.

“Through this statement, BudgIT is notifying all state governments, civil society organizations, development partners, media, and the general public of the SFTL program. We also implore all subnational governments to enable functional and up-to-date state websites to facilitate the extraction of required information for the assessment. State governments and stakeholders are also urged to respond to requests for information promptly. We believe the States Fiscal Transparency League initiative will strengthen our democracy and bridge the gap between the government and its citizens”.