FG Mulls Compulsory Disclosures To Sanitize Public Spending

ABUJA, July 28, (THEWILL) - As part of efforts towards sanitizing public expenditure, Minister of Finance Olusegun Aganga has hinted that the government is looking at a new regime of compulsory public project disclosures.

The Minister disclosed this in Abuja at the just concluded Third National Procurement Forum.

After publicly commending the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Mr. Emeka Ezeh and his team for their good work which saved the nation over $590 million in three years, Aganga said that the same rigorous process shall be introduced into other stages of public expenditure.

He said that the government was working towards reviewing public expenditure, strengthening the monitoring and implementation process and entrenching a performance-based budget system.

"We must take our success in the procurement practices to the monitoring and implementation of our projects", Aganga said.

"We have to enhance the quality and efficiency of public spending. This is important to Mr. President and he has taken the lead on this."

Aganga hinted that the construction sector was on the radar for greater transparency.

"I hope in your deliberations, you will consider joining the UK, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, Vietnam and the Philippines in adopting the Construction Sector Transparency (COST) initiative," he said. This initiative, according to him, has saved about $480 billion of public expenditure globally.

Explaining the COST initiative, the minister said, "The programme promotes and essentially seeks to improve transparency and accountability through disclosure of material project information for selected construction projects such as; the description of the project, the location of the project, tendering process and results, contract award, changes to the contract, final project specification, cost, evaluation and completion reports.

All that will be disclosed and there will be multi-stakeholders’ group put together which shall include public, private and civil society, which will be involved in project monitoring and evaluation, or have oversight over this process. We are trying to cut the waste without affecting the quality of public service.

"There will be disclosure and information will be readily available, properly disclosed on these projects; progress being made, if there is any revision on cost, when it is to be completed, and so on, so that people can track it," he said.