FRC Moves to Strengthen Fiscal Management in North-east States

The Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC), an agency of the federal government said it has made concerted effort towards strengthening fiscal management in the north-eastern states through effective fiscal responsibility laws.

The Chairman of the Commission, Chief Victor Muruako, made the disclosure at a three -day awareness and sensitisation workshop on transparency and accountability held in Yola, Adamawa State, yesterday in his opening remarks.

According to Muruako, the participants were carefully selected from the state ministries of Finance, Budget and Planning and Civil Society Organisations drawn from the six states of north-east geo-political zone of the country.

The Chairman said they were commencing the awareness and sensitisation workshop in the north-east and would soon take it to other geo-political zones of the country.

He further explained that the FRC would continue to keep driving towards its vision of a transparent and accountable government financial management framework in the country.

“The programme is in alignment with the Commission’s mission which for the records is to promote prudent and transparent fiscal management in Nigeria; in line with the mandate of the Commission to support states and local government in the federation to adopt and improve good fiscal practices as provided in the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007, ” he said

According to the chairman, “The theme of the workshop is sustaining the gains of fiscal Transparency and accountability in state.”

“The operational word here is sustaining indicates our acknowledgement of progress in these areas and our desire to build on the progress.”

He said the Commission had also followed up on the different fiscal management enhancement programmes over the years in various states of the federation by different agencies and bodies that were mandated to assist the states with skills, knowledge, tools and templates  for adopting transparency participation and accountability in managing their resources of particular interest is the States’ Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) which has recorded  good reviews in term of results.

“Our desire as a federal agency is for these results to not only remain, but also improve as the incentives attached to SFTAS come to an end,” he added.

“It is also our desire states improve in their in internally generated revenue (IGR) because one day the federal government may not have money to share to states or World Bank’s support would stop,” he added.