Nigeria records ‘significant progress’ in US fiscal transparency assessment 

The United States has classified Nigeria among 14 countries that made “significant progress” towards meeting its minimum fiscal transparency requirements in 2019.

The classification came in the 2020 Fiscal Transparency Report released by the U.S. Department on State on Monday.

The document, released annually, assesses budget transparency of 141 national governments that receive the US assistance.

It uses criteria such as public availability, substantial completeness, and reliability of budget documents in its assessment.

The report also judges the countries based on the transparency of the process of awarding government contracts and licenses.

The 2020 edition, which covers January 1 to December 31, 2019, stated that 76 of the 141 countries met the minimum requirements of fiscal transparency.

At least 14 of the 65 governments that did not meet the minimum requirements, including Nigeria made “significant progress” during the review period.

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The 13 other countries that made progress alongside Nigeria are Bahrain, Benin, Ecuador, The Gambia, Madagascar, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

In the 2019 edition, which covered January 1 to December 31, 2018, Nigeria was neither among 74 countries said to have met the minimum requirements nor among 13 adjudged to have made significant progress.

The report said: “Nigeria made significant progress by including allocations to and earnings from its state-owned enterprises in its budget documents.

“During the review period, the government made its executive budget proposal, enacted budget, and end-of-year report accessible to the general public, including online.

“Information on debt obligations was publicly available.”

It added that the government’s 2019 budget documents provided detailed estimates for revenues and expenditures.

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