…FRC seeks speedy passage of amendment bill
The Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) with support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has set up a fiscal monitoring framework, a soft tool expected to help raise its oversight efficiency.
The critical infrastructure comes 15 years after the Commission’s establishment. In the intervening years, its staff carried out oversight roles with limited templates.
A statement issued by Head of Strategic Communications, Bede Anyanwu, said the critical infrastructure was set up following approval by the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed.
The setup was effected after two weeks of intensive training and engagement with the management and senior technical staff of the FRC by IMF. The IMF Mission was led by Sybi Hida, a senior economist in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the Fund.
Delighted at the significance and content of the training and the framework deployed, the Chairman of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Victor Muruako said: “We have concluded that amongst all manpower development support and interventions that the Commission has enjoyed since its establishment over a decade ago, this IMF mission is certainly the most impactful, combining elements of strategy meetings, organisational self-discovery sessions, training and ecosystem development.
“This is, literally speaking, the template which the Commission never had at its inception.”
Muruako recalled that, at inception, the Commission was handed a new mandate without corresponding templates, guidelines, handover notes or depth of access to requisite manpower development.
Hence, the pioneer staff, being new in the fiscal responsibility monitoring and enforcement space, found themselves doing the work of both visionaries and operators.
“Often times,” the chairman said, “the scenario looked like we were building an aeroplane while at the same time, flying it. Thank God, we have been successful at both.”
Muruako lamented the fact that despite the many achievements of the Commission, there are still stakeholders that appear to find it difficult to understand where and how to accommodate the Commission in the public finance management ecosystem.
He affirmed that FRC is a fiscal reform organisation that has had to use hard work and integrity to break through the fog and deliver on its mandate, which is unique and not a duplication of other agencies’ responsibilities as assumed in the report of the Orosanye Panel.
Reflecting on the phases that the Commission has passed over the years, the FRC Chairman noted that the FRC has been very well received by citizens and the Federal Government alike since its establishment. He posited that the use of legislation to moderate the behaviour of fiscal agents and replace discretionary powers with fiscal rules, ceilings and timelines are most proper for a fiscal environment that has suffered considerable abuse like Nigeria.
He appealed to the National Assembly to conclude the amendment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act which went through a public hearing in the Senate over a year ago, pleading that it would place the Commission in a better position to support fiscal policy sustainability and straighten public finance management in Nigeria.
The recent support by IMF to FRC is the second mission to the Commission this year alone, the first being a one-month training of over 30 FRC senior staff delivered virtually by IMF’s AFRITAC II. It was the capacity-building programme that informed the latest intervention.
