Disclosures from the civil society sector of the state suggests that Cross River a sub-national entity in Nigeria’s south southern extraction has been bereft of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF since 2016 NEGROIDHAVEN has garnered.
Kingsley Eworo the Executive Secretary of Budget Transparency and Accountability Network, BTAN made this disclosure on Thursday while on air as a guest of the Let’s Talk Nigeria segment of the Sparkling Morning Show on Sparkling 92.3FM.
While fielding questions and giving perspective from Cinie Williams a co-host of the talk show about the 2023 Cross River appropriation law estimated at 330 billion Naira and christened Budget of Quantum Infinitum, Eworo explained that the 9th Cross River State House of Assembly, CRSHA had failed to deliberate and provide the MTEF for the state for over 6 years.
Eworo further noted that his organisation, BTAN had made frantic efforts to ensure that the state is without an MTEF but, those efforts have not been successful.
According to him an agency referred to as Fiscal Responsibility Commission, FRC was not budgeted for in the state 2023 appropriation law implying that such an agency would be financially handicapped to perform its constitutional objectives.
His words, ‘If you had an MTEF in 2019, 2020, 2021, and COVID-19 struck us, there is need to rejig the document to match up with the exigencies propped up by the economy’.
According to a 8th December 2022 public presentation made by BTAN during the 2023 Budget Stakeholders Forum at the Cross River State House of Assembly it said observed that ‘The 2023 budget continued in the unhelpful tradition of non-presentation of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP). The MTEF/FSP is a fiscal compass and its absence could endanger the State. This is in contravention of the provisions of Section 13(1) the Fiscal Responsibility Law. There are concerns that this being a transition budget, the in-coming administration will not have a mid-term fiscal plan to guide its decisions going forward and may not know on what basis the budget was prepared.’
BTAN recommended that ‘The practice of presenting the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper(FSP), should be re-enacted and the documents made publicly available.’
He observed that the MTEF needed such stakeholders like CSO, Debt Management Office, State Planning Commission, Ministry of Finance, Budget Office, etc for it to be prepared.
EDITORIAL
This story amongst others are reviewed on Sparkling 92.3FM http://mixlr.com/sparkling923fm–2and FAD 93.1FM. Again, opinions expressed on NegroidHaven are exclusively the author’s not NH’s.
