By Adedapo Adesanya
Civic-tech organisation, BudgIT, has called on the federal government to urgently address persistent weaknesses in budget execution, public auditing and procurement disclosure ahead of the 2027 budget cycle.
BudgIT, in a reaction to the United States Department of State’s 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report, said the assessment exposed significant gaps in Nigeria’s management and disclosure of public finances and should serve as a catalyst for comprehensive reforms ahead of the 2027 budget cycle.
The American report, which assessed Nigeria’s fiscal transparency practices between January 1 and December 31, 2025, placed the country among 67 of the 140 governments and entities reviewed that failed to meet minimum fiscal transparency requirements. Of the 67 governments that failed to meet the requirements, only 14 were assessed to have made significant progress in addressing identified deficiencies. Nigeria was not among those countries.
BudgIT said although the Fiscal Transparency Report focused specifically on fiscal disclosure and should not be regarded as a comprehensive assessment of all public financial management reforms being undertaken in Nigeria, its findings raised serious concerns about the credibility and accessibility of government financial information.
According to the organisation, the assessment reinforced longstanding concerns surrounding the quality of budget implementation reports, the independence and effectiveness of Nigeria’s audit institutions and the availability of public procurement information.
BudgIT said these shortcomings went beyond technical issues because they directly affected citizens’ ability to understand how government raises, allocates and spends public resources.
One of the major concerns identified in the US assessment was the inability of Nigeria’s budget documents to provide a substantially complete picture of government revenues and expenditures.
The report also found that actual government revenues and expenditures did not reasonably correspond with the enacted budget, raising questions about the credibility of the budget as a framework for fiscal planning and accountability.
BudgIT argued that a budget should not merely be an annual statement of government intentions but should provide a credible framework through which government communicates its fiscal priorities and commits public resources.
The organisation expressed particular concern that, despite the federal government’s continued publication of budget documents, actual budget implementation reporting remains inadequate.
BudgIT noted that publishing approved budget figures was not enough, stressing that the government must provide timely, consolidated and comprehensive information on actual revenue collection and expenditure.
It also pointed to Nigeria’s adoption of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) since 2016, arguing that the principles of transparency and accountability embedded in internationally accepted public-sector financial reporting should be reflected in the quality, timeliness and completeness of Nigeria’s fiscal reports.
The organisation also highlighted weaknesses in the country’s audit architecture. The US assessment found that the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation does not meet international standards of independence and has not published substantive audit reports as required.
BudgIT said an effective supreme audit institution is essential to ensuring accountability because it independently assesses how public resources have been utilised and whether government spending complies with approved appropriations and applicable laws.
It warned that without adequate institutional independence and the timely publication of audit findings, the National Assembly, civil society organisations and citizens would be deprived of an important mechanism for scrutinising public expenditure.
BudgIT therefore called for the completion of long-overdue reforms to Nigeria’s audit framework, stressing that the continued reliance on an outdated legal framework for public auditing constrains the Auditor-General’s ability to operate with the independence, authority and institutional capacity required in a modern public financial management system.
The US report also found that accessible information on public procurement contracts was not sufficiently available to the public.
BudgIT said citizens should be able to follow the procurement process from the publication of procurement opportunities through bidding, contract award, execution and completion.
Commenting on the report, BudgIT’s Head of Research and Policy Advisory, Mrs Adejoke Akinbode, said the federal government should use Nigeria’s second consecutive failure to meet the US minimum fiscal transparency requirements as an opportunity to undertake a comprehensive review of the country’s fiscal disclosure architecture ahead of the 2027 budget cycle.