PFIPC: Tinubu administration must provide data – BudgIt Foundation

Nigeria’s civic tech organization, BudgIt Foundation has challenged the administration of President Bola Tinubu to go beyond pronouncements and provide data.

Country Director of Budgit Foundation, Vahyala Kwaga, made this remark on Friday during and interview programme on Arise Television.

He was reacting to the the contentious Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, PFIPC.

“This administration must move beyond pronouncements and provide data. Nigerians deserve access to data from both the Budget of the Federation and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.

“They want to see the hard facts presented in numbers, not just responses or defences during investigations by the National Assembly.

“We need to look at the way this system functions in practice, and what usually happens is that you have the ministry, department, or agency interfacing with the federal executive’s budget process.

“Now it does this through the Budget Preparation System, BPS. Now this is done within the Government Integrated Financial Information Management System, GIFIMS. So it is through that budget preparation system that an Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, gets a code.

“The Budget Office doesn’t control the GIFIMS ecosystem. It’s just a player that provides oversight. So this must have happened somewhere between how MDAs emerge and I also recall the Head of Service of the Federation speaking quite candidly and admitting that there were some loopholes.

“The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, is another institution that is responsible for oversight for management of all the MDAs of governments. The Budget Office as well provides oversight,” he said.