Accountant-General calls for effective public finance management

The Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr Ahmed Idris, on Thursday in Abuja called for efficient and effective service delivery in public finance management.

Ahmed made the call at a Lunch Time Seminar on Transformation and Digitisation of Public Financial Management Systems in Nigeria, organised by the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), tagged: Innovation, Bottlenecks and Way Forward.

He said the reforms would help to entrench the culture of transparency probity and accountability in the country.

“Reforms do not just come, there are requirements needed for reforms such as right and honest leadership, political will, training and capacity building, education sensitisation and awareness creation.

“Resistance to change, poor sensitisation, lack of capacity and training, inadequate funding and low level synergy and coordination are some challenges to reform,” Ahmed said.

He suggested that public finance reforms initiative should be supported, sustained and protected as part of the ways to sustain reforms.

He advised that reform should not be left for the politicians only.

“There should be an effective monitoring and evaluation of reforms, we need to go digital in all aspects of life, we need to develop a smart environment,” Ahmed said.

Mr Dasuki Arabi, the Director-General, BPSR, said that it was important to build a comprehensive digital and regulatory infrastructure that will permit an inclusive approach to Public Financial Management (PFM).

He said PFM required more active involvement on the part of Central Fiscal Agencies, which should ideally play leadership role.

“The movement to a digitised economy also comes with some risks, both to citizens and government systems.

”They face opposition from vested interests that have benefited from the previous system.

”As a result, it is imperative to constantly train and re-train Public Servants that are PFM experts.

“This is to assist in positioning a modern functional PFM at the centre of the government’s broader digitisation and inclusion agendas with the aim of addressing these evolving risks,” he said.