Under Wike, Rivers Emerges Last In ICAN’s Fiscal Accountability Index

Rivers State under Governor Nyesom Wike has emerged as the least transparent state based on the 2020/2021 Accountability Index conducted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN).

ICAN revealed this at the launch of the report in Lagos State.

The institution said it will recognise five states that recorded outstanding performances in the period.

The ICAN- Accountability Index covered the 36 States and the Federal Government of Nigeria.

The ICAN-AI adapts the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) Framework and takes into account the public finance peculiarities of emerging economies to promote efficient public financial management in Nigeria.

The ICAN-AI Framework consists of 5 Pillars, 25 Indicators and 70 Dimensions, according to ICAN.

Compared to the 2017 and 2018 reports, ICAN said the 2020/2021 report received an improvement in the percentage of information made available for the assessment.

It recorded 50 per cent and 53 per cent overall information availability respectively as against the 28 per cent and 35 per cent average availability rates in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

Based on the ranking, Jigawa State was ranked number one (75.1% score) in 2020 and 2021 while Kaduna State was rated 2nd in 2020/21 (74.7% score).

The Index ranked Bauchi State third (74.3% score) most accountable state in 2021 while Edo State came third (73.5% score) in 2020.

Rivers State was ranked 37th making it the worst accountable state with 20.4 per cent score, while Sokoto State and Oyo State were ranked 36th and 35th with 23.7 per cent and 24.5 per cent scores respectively.

The ICAN-AI ranked the FGN as the 23rd most accountable State with 39.6 per cent score.

Tijjani Musa Isa, the President of ICAN said, “While these improvements in information availability is a welcome development, there is so much room for improvement and a need for a higher commitment to fiscal transparency and accountability. There is a need to increase the ease of accessing fiscal information on the various entities.

“This will encourage more robust interrogations, by stakeholders, on how the country’s fiscal resources are managed by its stewards. These reports have provided detailed analyses of the three tiers of government with a view to informing the public about each entity’s level of adherence to best practices in PFM.”

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