Since its inception in 2018, the States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) program, which is supported by the World Bank Group, has disbursed N351.65 billion to the various participating states of the federation.
The World Bank released $1.5 billion in two installments to promote fiscal transparency in state governments, with the total amount disbursed totaling N351.65 billion. Stephen Okon, the national program coordinator for SFTAS, stated that the outstanding amount will be paid out in October of this year.
“Currently we are also in the process of making more disbursements for the 2020 APA and 2021 APA. The 2021 APA which we expect to disburse in October will be the last of this disbursement. Currently, disbursement is ongoing for 2020 and 2019 APA,” Mr. Okon said at the weekend at a workshop to sensitize civil society organizations about the program.
The disbursements are made to states as grants for achievements made in respect of meeting what the program implementers call disbursement link indicators.
In a bid to encourage a common set of fiscal behavior aimed at promoting fiscal transparency, accountability, and sustainability among the States of the Federation, the World Bank, and the Federal Government developed a four-year (2018 – 2022) Programme for Results (PforR) facility worth $750 million tagged States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) PforR.
Meanwhile, the national coordinator has said the program now in its fourth and final year of implementation “needs to be sustained if the full ideals are to be realized.”
As it stands, there is no indication that the federal government will extend the program. But because of its impact on the states and public finance management, there is only the expectation that the federal government would consider exploring such an idea, moving forward.
The workshop aims to deepen the understanding of CSOs on the major program elements of the SFTAS Programme for results; enhance program visibility and buy-in; create and sustain mutual lines of communication, contact, and understanding between the Programme and the CSOs; enhance community mobilization for program ideals’ sustainability, and engender ownership and participation by CSOs post-SFTAS.
Okon said not much challenge was encountered in the implementation of the program. He attributed the huge success of the World Bank-assisted program to support from all key stakeholders, especially the Nigerian Governor’s Forum, saying “the challenges were surmounted.” He said the minor challenge encountered was in isolated situations where some states are slow in filing-in their reports.
Filing questions from reporters on the sideline of the event that was held at the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja, SFTAS’ national coordinator said the program has enhanced transparency in states. “Obviously yes,” Okon answered when asked if the scheme has entrenched transparency in public accounts management by states.
“You know the key aspects of transparency or where you mention transparency will be on matters of budget, matters of the audited account of states. So, when you have that information in the public domain then it means that there is information for the society, for civil society organizations, for other members of the society to interrogate so there is better openness than before the program was established,” he said.
