Edo emerges first, beats 34 other States to sit top on Nigeria’s fiscal transparency league table

The Edo State Government has ranked first, beating 34 other Nigerian States and tying with Anambra State in BudgIT’s 2024 Quarter One Fiscal Transparency League Table.

BudgIT said the assessment, which is available on its website, “focused on the availability and comprehensiveness of key fiscal documents, the functionality of state websites and e-procurement portals, and the timeliness of publications.”

It noted that in Q1 2024, the fiscal transparency across Nigerian States varied significantly, impacting their rankings on the States’ Fiscal Transparency League (SFTL) table.

The ranking had Edo and Anambra leading the pack with a 93% score out of 100% Ekiti (92%), Jigawa (92%), and Ebonyi (87%) completing the top five.

At the bottom are Benue (42%), Kebbi (42%), Bayelsa (40%), Borno (32%) and Imo (31%) at the bottom in descending order.

On Edo State’s performance, BudgIT said “Having a tie and sharing similar strengths with Anambra, it needed a better arrangement of documents on their website.”

The key indicators for the ranking are the Medium-Term Expenditure Project (MTEF), Proposed Budget, Approved Budget, Citizens’ Budget, Budget Implementation Reports, Audit Reports, Accountant General’s Report/Financial Statement, e-procurement Portal, and State’s website with fiscal repository.

Each of the indicators is rated for their availability, timeliness, and comprehensiveness in the report.

The Report said the MTEF is an annual three-year-expenditure planning, noting that it sets out the medium-term expenditure priorities and hard budget constraints against which sector plans can be developed and refined.

“MTEF also contains outcome criteria for the purpose of performance monitoring. MTEF together with the annual Budget Framework Paper provides the basis for annual budget planning. The MTEF is expected to be published on the states' website before the end of Q3,” it added.