BudgIT Foundation, a Lagos-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), has made a name for itself by using information technology tools to render national and state budgets in a format that makes them easy to understand, by ordinary people, across literacy bands. As part of its work, the low membership organisation uses part of the huge funds it gets, from individuals and foreign donor agencies, to publish what it calls State Fiscal Transparency League (SFTL) reports. These periodic reports, among other things, rank the 36 states based on their supposed level of compliance with basic financial reporting standards.
In its 2023 fiscal transparency league table, BudgIT placed Sokoto state in the 13th position. Stakeholders in the Sokoto state project were tempted to celebrate this ranking as an epic achievement. It looked really significant that the administration of Dr Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto, which assumed office in the middle of the year, without the benefit of proper hand-over note from its predecessor, could rate better than 26 other states in the area of budget transparency. On a second thought, they wisely ignored the BudgIT ranking, knowing that having the state budget details dressed up in colourful charts, and hoisted on the internet, would not add extra value to the budget or to the lives of the people of the Seat of the Caliphate.
Indeed, a creative presentation of budget informatics by skillful ICT experts amounts to nothing more than a publicity stunt. It does not enhance the effectiveness of budget execution, nor does it monitor the actual impact of public expenditure patterns on the living standards of people. While not denying the need for increased citizens’ participation in the formulation and execution of government budgets in a democracy, one is tempted to conclude that BudgIT’s undue emphasis on beautiful display of budget details online, is a misplaced priority, rather like rating mere appearance above the substantive economic and social objectives of public expenditure profiles.
Perhaps, because Sokoto state did not roll out the drums to celebrate its positive fiscal transparency ranking in 2023, the BudgIT crew “felt offended” and decided to take the state to the cleaners. This appears to be the only logical explanation for the dramatic reversal of fortunes, which saw Sokoto state falling from the 13th position in 2023, to the very last position (36th), in the 2024 third quarter BudgIT rankings, a drastic fall that unfairly projected Sokoto as the worst performing state in fiscal transparency index,which is far from the reality.
Key stakeholders in the Sokoto project, who have the right to ask questions are baffled. What really went wrong in the few months between the last quarter of 2023, and the third quarter of 2024,that prompted the BudgIT team to slam Sokoto State with an abysmal indexing; the undeserved punishment that provided a launching pad for rabble rousers in the social media space to throw mud, and cast aspersion, on the state and its transformational leaders.
Justifying why the state deserved to be scandalized in the fiscal transparency league table, the BudgIT operatives explained that: “though Sokoto state achieved perfect score in areas such as the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), and Approved Budget, it faced challenges in key areas like revenue repository, audit transparency, and the e-procurement portal. Additionally, its website with fiscal data repository showed room for improvement.”
This simply means that the financial reports the BudgIT team saw on the Sokoto state websites had not been updated at the due date. Nobody accused the government of violating the standard financial reporting framework in a manner that could remotely smack of irresponsible accounting or total lack of accountability.
If the fiscal reports were not up to date, a more dignifying approach would have been to reach out to the state authorities and obtain the information needed to close out any gaps in the process.
But alas, BudgIT Country Director Gabriel Okeowo and his team of desktop researchers failed to seek engagement with Sokoto, or any other state that seemed to have gaps in their fiscal transparency key indicators. They chose to sit behind the keyboards in their cosy offices at Yaba, Lagos, to accuse, judge and summarily convict Sokoto state government for the “crime” of failure to upload its budget details online. The summary conviction attracted the severe punishment of a scandalous ranking on the fiscal transparency league table, and the skewed write-up that portrayed hardworking political leaders in bad light.
Gladly, the reality on the ground in Sokoto state is totally different from the fictional negativity that BudgIT has tried to portray with its tendentious fiscal transparency chart. The fiscal responsibility credentials of the Sokoto state administration under Gov Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto quite evident and unequalled. This can be seen from the fact that the government delivered over 186 impactful infrastructural projects in the 18 months; honoured all its obligations to workers, retirees and creditors, and has sustained critical social welfare programmes for its citizens, all this without ever approaching any commercial bank for a loan facility.
Any government that can faithfully and aggressively pursue its campaign programmes, and meet its obligations, without increasing taxes on its people or dragging into the quicksand of debt, does not need nebulous transparency tutorials from any NGO on how to dress up budget data, and when to upload fiscal informatics on the internet.
NGO’s should cultivate a proper view of their role in a democracy. In the specific case of BudgIT, it would be a fallacy of over simplification to assume that mere publication of budget fundamentals would guarantee that government expenditure patterns aligned with the most critical needs, or the wishes, of the people.
Let us take the example of Ebonyi state that placed second in the latest BudgIT ranking. This very state had budget N13 billion to renovate the runway of a brand new Airport that was constructed at the whopping cost of N53 billion. Since its inauguration, the residents say that no single commercial flight had landed in the colourful Ebonyi airport, making it look like a veritable white elephant. Yet, another huge chunk of public funds is being spent to reconstruct its runway.
Ebonyi state proudly perches at the second position in the BudgIT fiscal transparency league table, while our dear Sokoto state was crucified for more judicious use of its own resources.
At this point, it would be proper to remind BudgIT and other self-appointed messiah NGO’s that no government is obliged to do their bidding. In the specific case of Sokoto state, the ultimate judges of the government are the electorates who entrusted it with the mandate to manage the state’s resources; and the public accounts committee of the Sokoto State House of Assembly. These bodies have the constitutional power of appropriation, to receive audited accounts report of the state government and to raise audit queries when necessary.
The NGO’s should be more circumspect about what they publish,to avoid compounding social problems or even creating new ones. Periodic publication of skewed and tendentious information in the public space can have deleterious effects on the national and sub- national governments, and on the political careers of their victims.
The electorate in Sokoto state sees the mischievous poor ranking of the state in the BudgIT 2024 fiscal transparency index as willful de-marketing exercise, an expression of unwarranted aggression, which is injurious to the collective good of the state and its able leadership. Moreover, disinformation is akin to cyber bullying, which is a crime in most countries of the world, including Nigeria.
Clearly the people do not expect the governor to channel scarce resources in the direction of dressing up budget informatics in the most appealing manner, just so he can satisfy the demand of BudgIT Foundation, which appears to place emphasis on how the budget looks on the internet, over and above the goals and actual achievements of public expenditures.
The government of Dr. Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto should continue to focus on the many good things it is doing to advance education, build and maintain roads, expand water supply, promote agriculture, improve access to healthcare, and the creative use of agro-forestry to protect the environment while producing food and cash crops, among other things listed in the now famous nine-point agenda.
The delivery of 186 impactful projects in 18 months is more important to the good people of Sokoto state than dressing up budget data for colourful display on the internet.
