Three months after launching, FG’s open treasury portal has no record of 2020 daily payments

MORE than 90 days after the Federal Government launched its Open Treasury Portal (OTP) for government ministries, departments and agencies to upload their daily financial information on procurement, the portal has not been updated since January 2020, The ICIR can report.

The Federal Government on December 9, 2019 launched the OTP in a bid to demonstrate transparency and accountability in the management of public sector finances.

During the launch of the portal, President Muhammad Buhari who was represented by Omotayo Alasoadura, Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs directed the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to publish daily treasury statements.

“The Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) must publish a daily treasury report which will provide information about what comes into and what goes out of the national purse every day,” Alasoadura had said on behalf of the president.

All Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are expected to publish monthly performance of their budget, functions, and economic activities, while the AGF will publish monthly accounts, detailing the fiscal performance of the federation, including receipts from all the (revenue) collection agencies and payments out of the federation account,” Alasoadura said.

The directive to the AGF is that the AGF is required to publish daily reports of all payments made to MDAs above N10 million, while MDAs will publish daily reports of payment they made above N5 million.

The published information is expected to include the MDAs responsible, the beneficiary, the purpose and amount of each payment.

Findings by The ICIR however, revealed that the directives and the excitement that greeted the launch of the portal have waned as it is over 70 days that there have been no update of contents on the portal.

Reports that are to be published include daily payment reports, monthly budget performance report, monthly fiscal account, quarterly budget performance report, quarterly financial statements by MDAs, quarterly consolidated financial statements by the federal government, and annual general purpose financial statements by the Federal Government.

But none of these is currently available on the portal when The ICIR checked. For instance, in 2018, datasets of daily payment report showed that the portal has reports of just four months or last quarter of that year. The reports were those from September to December.

Also, reports of 2019 transaction on the portal reflected January to December. That is, the daily payment reports and monthly budget performance reports were published for each month from January to December.

In 2020 which is the current year, and which is over 70 days after the launch of the portal, no reports have so far been published. In fact, the 2020 button when clicked links back to the homepage of the website.

It would be recalled that the 2020 budget was passed and assented to by the National Assembly and the President respectively in December 2019.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/three-months-after-launching-fgs-open-treasury-portal-has-no-record-of-2020-daily-payments/

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