Open Letter To Budget Office Of The Federation.

July 28, 2015

The Director General

Budget Office of the Federation

Federal Ministry of Finance

Abuja.

Dear Sir,

OVERDUE BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION REPORTS: AN OPEN LETTER

Centre for Social Justice is a leading Nigerian civil society organisation that works inter alia on public finance management and fiscal governance reforms.

We recall the beautiful provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007 (FRA) which sets out to introduce greater transparency and accountability in the management of public finances and other resources in Nigeria. The FRA also seeks to introduce evidence based budget decision making which will lead to improvements in the livelihoods of Nigerians. We specifically recall the provisions of section 30 of the FRA which states:

30: (1) The Minister of Finance through the Budget Office of the Federation shall monitor and evaluate the implementation of the Annual Budget, assess the attainment of fiscal targets and report thereon on a quarterly basis to the Fiscal Responsibility Commission and the Joint Finance Committee of the National Assembly.

(2) The Minister of Finance shall cause the report prepared pursuant to subsection (1) of this section to be published in the mass and electronic media and on the Ministry of Finance website, not later than 30 days after the end of each quarter.

However, we note with regret that the last published Budget Implementation Report is the report on the implementation of the 2014 budget in the second quarter. Thus, the Budget Implementation Reports for the third and fourth quarter of 2014 are overdue and have not been published. Further the reports for the first and second quarter on the implementation of the 2015 federal budget are also due but have not been published.

The provisions of section 30 of the FRA are reinforced by section 50 which places a duty on the Budget Office of the Federation as follows:

The Federal Government through its Budget Office shall within 30 days after the end of each quarter, publish a summarized report on budget execution in such form as may be prescribed by the Fiscal Responsibility Commission and not later than 6 months after the end of the financial year, a consolidated budget execution report showing implementation against physical and financial performance targets shall be published by the Minister of Finance for submission to the National Assembly and dissemination to the public.

It is also clear that the end of year report for the 2014 financial year which has been due since June 2015 has not been prepared and published.

In the light of the foregoing, all the evidence point to the failure, neglect and refusal to perform a statutory duty to the detriment of Nigerian citizens. Our rights as law abiding Nigerians to fiscal information has been violated and this is not a situation that should be allowed to continue. Considering that the Budget Office of the Federation is maintained at the tax payers’ expense, the Director-General and other officers in the Office have no alternative but to do the bidding of tax payers which is to perform their statutory duty.

Centre for Social Justice therefore demands that the due Budget Implementation Reports be prepared and forwarded to the National Assembly, the Fiscal Responsibility Commission and publicly disseminated within two weeks from the date of this letter. If the Budget Office of the Federation refuses or is unable to publish the reports within the stated period, we shall be compelled to invoke section 51 of the FRA to compel the performance of the duties.

We hope you will let wise counsel.

Sincerely,

Eze Onyekpere, Esq.

Lead Director

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