BudgIT Launches A Real-time Online Platform For Nigerians To Monitor Government Spending
BudgIT launches a real-time online platform for Nigerians to monitor government spending
Over the years, Nigeria's governance has been beset by a slew of issues. Among them are misappropriation, a lack of accountability, and widespread corruption throughout the system. Nigeria is ranked 149th out of 183 countries on the Corruption Perception Index as of January 2021. (CPI).
Apart from a lack of strong legislation to punish offenders and the political will to enforce those laws, one significant reason corruption has thrived is a lack of oversight and citizen demand for accountability. This has resulted in an increase in calls for Nigerians to take a more active role in their country's affairs, particularly in terms of holding leaders accountable. However, this will be impossible if they are unable to monitor government spending.
BudgIT, a Nigerian civic technology company, has launched an online platform that will enable Nigerians to monitor the federal government's treasury in real time and see how the government spends its money.
According to BudgIT, the govspend.ng platform is a comprehensive portal that will provide access to visualized and simplified data from the government's Open Treasury Portal. It is aimed at citizens as well as members of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and the media.
The platform is based on the Federal Government's Open Treasury Portal (OTP), which was launched in 2019 by the Buhari administration to improve government spending transparency and accountability. The OTP compiles data on government spending from ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs).
While the OTP makes these government spending data available to the public, govspend.ng simplifies and presents these treasury reports in visual formats. This, the organization hopes, will make it easier for citizens to access, monitor, and comprehend the FG's real-time expenditure.
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Also, the online platform would flag any discrepancies in these expenditures discovered by the BudgIt team. These irregularities include payments to multiple beneficiaries, payments without a description, and payments to personal accounts, among others.
While CEO of BudgIT, Gabriel Okeowo, noted that the FG has done an excellent job of ensuring that the government's daily expenditures are public, he noted that the data on the portal is mostly in non-machine readable formats. Additionally, they are not downloadable.
“We created the govspend.ng portal to address this,” he explained.
He also urged the media to use the platform's data for advocacy and investigative journalism.
The development is undoubtedly ambitious, as it would provide citizens with visibility into how their money is spent. One can only hope that Nigerians will be able to use the platform to demand accountability and, hopefully, reduce high-level misappropriation and corruption.
The FG's Open Treasury Portal aggregates expenditures by MDAs exceeding N5 million and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation exceeding N10 million.
