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By Chiamaka Ajeamo
Only four governments; Kaduna, Jigawa, Enugu and Abuja (FGN), maintained their top 10 positions from the previous year in the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) Accountability Index (AI), 2019 Assessment report.
A breakdown of the ranking in terms of overall accountability performance revealed that Kaduna State ranked first place with an overall score of 72.7 per cent, Enugu ranked second with a score of 58.2 per cent, followed by Jigawa with a score of 55.9 per cent, FGN took the 10th position with a score of 39.6 per cent while Edo State ranked last with a score of 15.1 percent.
Speaking at the public presentation of the 2019 ICAN-AI report in Lagos, the President of ICAN, Dame Onome Joy Adewuyi, explained that ICAN in 2017, launched the novel ICAN-AI which is the first of its kind mechanism for assessing the level of accountability and quality of public finance management practices across the three tiers of government in Nigeria, in line with global best practices.
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She stated that the initiative by the institute was borne out of its commitment to serving the public interest and the trailblazing work it has been doing in promoting accountability, transparency, accuracy and integrity in the Nigerian economy over the past 55 years.
Commenting on how the assessment was conducted, Adewuyi disclosed that the federal and state governments were ranked according to their level of performance on the basis of a number of variables such as policy-based strategy and budgeting, budget credibility, management of assets and debts, external audit and legislative scrutiny among others.
On performance on transparency, she noted that in general, the entire country showed a low level of transparency; as this year’s report revealed a 7 per cent improvement over last year’s assessment; and this was inspired the plethora of legislations and laws in Nigeria mandating the availability of such information to stakeholders.
