By Chimezie Godfrey
The Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC)/Transparency International Nigeria, Auwal Musa has reiterated the interest of CISLAC to partner with Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) to ensure economic stability in Nigeria.
A statement issued by the Head, Strategic Communication Directorate, FRC, Bede Anyanwu, on Tuesday, disclosed that Musa stated this when he paid a one day working visit with his team to the Commission recently.
“With the external debt standing at USD 26.94billion and Excess Crude Account (ECA) barely US 71 million Balance of Trade (BOT) at UDS 18.7 billion and widening fiscal deficit on account of lower oil revenue, the fiscal space is critically constrained.
“Tax as a percentage of GD (8%) has been suboptimal while debt service to revenue at over 50% is high and worsening.
“There is need for economic diversification instead of heavy reliance on oil revenue generation,” he stated.
Musa commended the efforts of FRC in securing greater accountability and transparency in fiscal operations within a Medium Term Fiscal Policy Framework.
He also expressed his happiness with the interventions and measures by both fiscal authority and the CBN to contain the present financial resource constraint.
In his response, the Acting Chairman FRC, Barr. Victor Muruako called on CISLAC and other well meaning Nigerians to help the Commission in pushing for the quick passage of the amendment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007 which has been at the National Assembly since the 7th Assembly.
He urged the CISLAC’s Executive Director, and his team to partner with the Commission in achieving its mandate, so as to achieve sustainability of public debt for economic growth for the nation.
Muruako noted that the Fiscal Responsibility Commission is a child of necessity born against the backdrop of the observation that the Nigerian economy and its public finance management had degenerated into serial confusion and uncoordinated policies.
“This unfortunate realization galvanized the country at the behest of World Bank, IMF and other Development partners in the late 90s to embark upon far-reaching legal and institutional reforms which targeted the creation of an enabling environment for socio-economic development and drastic reduction in graft.
“There is need for the reforms necessitated the National Assembly to pass the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007 and the Public Procurement Act, 2007.
The FRC Acting Chairman, pointed out that the commission is one of the critical Agencies that have not gotten the much needed support, looking at the idea of establishing the key operator of Fiscal Responsibility Act,2007.”he stated.
Murayo disclosed that the Commission have continued to record tremendous progress in the remittance of operating surplus by schedule corporations.
He noted that as at present the Commission has caused over N1.8 trillion to be remitted to Consolidated Revenue Fund of government.
He further stated that before this time, the Commission had 31 schedule Corporations, and that later 99 new Agencies were added and this brings the total number of Agencies in the schedule to 122.
According to him, this is targeted at generating more independent revenue for the government.
Barr. Muruako called for more funding of the Commission to enable the discharge of its oversight functions on the 122 Schedule Corporations in line with the provision of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007.
