…Environment Ministry tops with 69.36%

The Centre for Social Justice on Wednesday unveiled the Fiscal Responsibility Index for Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies.It scored the Ministries of Finance, Health and Women Affairs low on the index.

The report which was put together by the CSJ with funding and technical support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa and the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, studied how MDAs of government had complied with the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, the national budget and the vision 2020 document.

Besides, the index also covered sub indexes on policy based on budget comprehensiveness and transparency, budget credibility, budget implementation, monitoring and evaluation, accounting and external auditing.

The report noted that a total of 16 MDAs were studied in the pilot survey with the Ministry of environment coming top on the index with 69.36 per cent.

It was followed by Ministry of Lands and Housing (67.62 per cent), Works (67.49 per cent), Mines and Steel (66.86 per cent) and Agriculture (66.65 per cent).

The report said while none of these agencies could score up to 70 per cent, they were able to cross the 66 per cent minimum threshold which is the accepted level of fiscal responsibility in MDAs.

It said that about 11 ministries in the study scored below the 66 per cent benchmark line for fiscal responsibility.

According to the report, the ministry of health, for instance, recorded the least score of 39.08 per cent on the index, while women affairs and finance ministries came up with 52.14 per cent and 55.59 per cent respectively.

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