Lagos is by far the wealthiest state in Nigeria. However, years of opaque budget practices have continued to cast a dark shadow over how the state generates and spends public funds.
In the early 2000s, when the state was starved of funds due to a face-off with the Federal Government, Lagos under Governor Bola Tinubu implemented radical changes to its revenue drive, fashioning what eventually became a masterstroke in revenue mobilisation in Nigeria. Consequently, Lagos State built a revenue model that saw it outperform its peers, setting the stage to generate internal funds that outstrip its allocation from the Central Government.
However, over the years, citizens, Non-Governmental Organisations and other Civil Society Organisations have queried the failure of the government to properly account for public funds, amid accusations of budget padding, misappropriation and misapplication.
A new report by BudgIT has placed all these in proper perspective, ranking Lagos 27th on a list of the country’s most fiscally transparent states for the first quarter of 2024.
Lagos scored 54% out of a maximum 100%, a rather poor showing for a state that has been aggressive in tax collection. Top on the list in the report are Anambra and Edo States which both achieved a 93% score, while Borno (32%) and Imo (31%) occupied the 35th and 36th positions respectively.
In the report, BudgIT said Lagos State’s proposed budget was available online. However, it was not accompanied by a Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), a three-year expenditure planning document. BudgIT added that the state’s published budget was “incomprehensive and also made available in a scanned copy, which was not machine readable. “The citizens budget was not timely published and the BIR (Budget Implementation Report) for the quarter under review was incomprehensive. The e-Procurement portal did not have up to date contracts,” it added.
On the purpose of the fiscal transparency report, BudgIT said the initiative is a build up 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.
This implies that the report is produced as part of a peer-review mechanism based on parameters set by the World Bank in enhancing transparency and accountability in states across Nigeria. Oftentimes, the SFTAS programme is a precondition for accessing some financing support from the Bretton Woods institution.
“Consequently, BudgIT’s States Fiscal Transparency League initiative aims to sustain the gains of the World Bank’s SFTAS by tracking how well States continue to maintain fiscal transparency, accountability, accessibility and effective public finance management even after the stipends have dried up. This program will be a quarterly assessment of how well the states are performing. It is important for all state governments to have functional and up-to-date websites, as this is imperative to enable the team to extract the required information to aid the process,” BudgIT said.
While Lagosians continue to clamour for openness in public spending, experts expect that such rankings will encourage the government to implement holistic reforms to engender transparency and accountability.