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Three northern states of Jigawa, Kaduna and Bauchi have emerged first, second and third, respectively in the 2021 Chartered Institute of Accountants of Nigeria Accountability Index.
Launched in 2017, ICAN-AI is a mechanism put in place by the professional body for assessing public finance management and public governance practices in Nigeria.
,Also, Edo and Niger states came fourth and fifth respectively.
In 2020 ICAN-AI, Jigawa, Kaduna, Edo, Niger and Taraba came first, second, third, fourth and fifth, respectively.
The states were recognised and awarded at the ICAN headquarters, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Monday during the public presentation of the 2020 and 2021 reports of the ICAN-AI.
Speaking during the presentation of the two-year reports, the President, ICAN, Mallam Tijjani Isa, said the programme was gaining traction and attracting the interest of stakeholders in Nigeria’s public finance management system.
He said the release of the reports was delayed due to the global and local disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the ENDSARS protests in the country.
He said, “Despite these challenges, we adhered to best practice and ensured that our promise to produce high-quality reports was not compromised.
“The reports are therefore an accurate reflection and account of the PFM performances of the governments in Nigeria. It is our expectations that it will continue to engender healthy PFM practices among the tiers of government in the country.
ICAN boss stressed that the first two editions of the report, covering 2017 and 2018 fiscal years, revealed major gaps in Nigeria’s PFM’s system, especially low level of publicly available information on the fiscal activities of the three tiers of government.
“We are encouraged that the 2020 and 2021 reports reveal a significant improvement in the percentage of information made available during assessment exercises, recording 50 per cent and 53 per cent overall information availability respectively. These percentages are improvements from the 28% and 35% average availability rates in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
The Chairman, ICAN-AI Technical Subcommittee, Oladele Oladipo, while giving an overview of the ICAN-AI said the objective of the index was to promote high-quality PFM system in Nigeria, to encourage the development of robust and credible PFM database and to encourage the development of credible medium-term plans among others.
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