THOUGH most observers believe that the recent Federal Government’s launch of the Financial Transparency Policy and Portal, FTPP, is populist, we would like to focus on its merits and support efforts which must be made to realise the objectives.

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The policy has been described as a major move towards deepening accountability in the public sector. We agree that it would contribute to the fight against corruption in line with the best global practices and confidence-building in governance and public finance.

The policy mandates the Accountant General of the Federation, AGF, and all Nigerian government accounting officers to publish daily reports of payments of at least N10 million, while all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, must report payments of above N5 million under their organisations.

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The policy also directs that all MDAs must publish monthly budget performance reports, which must be ready within seven days after the end of each month, and also publish monthly fiscal accounts which detail the performance of the government, within 14 days after the end of each month.

The policy also requires the AGF and all accounting officers to publish quarterly financial statements for the government as a whole and individual MDAs respectively.

Now we want to see the effective and diligent implementation of this policy. Otherwise it will be another wasted effort.

We are concerned that government did not specify the time this policy will take-off. We are curious to know why this was omitted. We believe that there is no better time to start than the first working day in 2020 when two budgets (2019 and 2020) would be running at same time.

According to the fiscal policy 2019, the current 2019 budget is expected to terminate in June 2020, while the 2020 budget commences January 2020.

By running the two budgets at same time in the first half of the new year, the expenditure profile of the government is expected to be on high velocity. Consequently, public office holders could be more tempted to be  financially reckless.

Moreover, since the policy provided for a publication of the unaudited consolidated financial statements for the Federal Government within a month of the end of the quarter, it is expected that the first quarter publication should come at end of April 2020.

We expect that the integrity of this first quarter publication would be enhanced if it comes as a buildup from the Monthly Fiscal Accounts (January, February and March 2019) publication which in turn should be derived from the Daily Treasury Statements and the Daily Payments Report.

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The last two should, therefore, commence on the first working day in the month of January, 2020. If this policy is faithfully implemented it would greatly enhance the anti-corruption agenda of the Buhari regime.

Vanguard