The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), has urged that future bail-outs programmes of the federal government to states should be tied to milestone achievements of such concerned states, which they said would facilitate promotion of proper fiscal responsibility in the country.
The Centre is also making further case for the federal government to ensure a bench-marking exercise that validates the progress made by participating states before they would be due for a financial drawdown.
Eze Onyekpere the Lead Partner of Centre for Social Justice gave the charge on Wednesday in Abuja at the unveiling of the ‘Implementation of the Sub national Fiscal Sustainability Plan’ with the evaluation of Cross River, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Kebbi, Niger and Yobe State representing each one state from different Geo-Political regions of the country.
Speaking further, Eze said the Subnational Fiscal Sustainability Plan seeks to ensure a more sustainable fiscal management of their resources and to introduce greater transparency and accountability in the fiscal process.
He informed further that the plan was developed against the background of the bail out funds given to states by the federal Government.
He remarked that the performance of the states in accountability and transparency needs to be improved,while pointing out that only Yobe state among the states in focus achieved full International Public Sector Accounting Standard, IPSAS.
Onyekpere also calls for the review of relevant and obsolete revenue laws and policies, which he said is ongoing in five of the six states in focus, adding that it would help in ensuring proper fiscal governance in the sub-national government.
In his earlier submission, Charles Abana,a representative of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, at the event urged the federal government to evolve mechanism of incentivising states who are engendering fiscal discipline in their respective states.
He encouraged states to adopt a fiscal responsibility laws that would ensure efficiency in financial transactions and fiscal discipline in the states.
He adds further that the enactment of the laws would ensure fiscal independence of the states shielded from any political or administration inconsistency.
Industry watchers are of the view that states enact fiscal responsibility laws which would improve fiscal prudence in public expenditure,while assisting in monitoring how government budgets is approved and released.
