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Akwa Ibom emerges most transparent public fund manager

By Cornelius Essen, Abuja
30 March 2023   |   2:25 am
A group, Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative, has disclosed that Akwa Ibom State scored 69 per cent to clinch the first position of Subnational Audit Efficacy (SAE) Index 2022 Report. The state won third place, last year.

Uyo, Akwa Ibom State<br />

Yobe, Katsina came second, third
A group, Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative, has disclosed that Akwa Ibom State scored 69 per cent to clinch the first position of Subnational Audit Efficacy (SAE) Index 2022 Report. The state won third place, last year.

Yobe came second with 63, Katsina came third with 50 per cent, Delta and Edo garnered 48 to place fourth in the ranking, while Borno and Kano states scored five and three to take 35th and 36th position, respectively.

Announcing the result in Abuja, the Initiative’s Executive Director, Olusegun Elemo, said the report was meant to assess the level of transparency and accountability operational in the management and utilisation of public funds in 36 states of the federation.

Elemo added: “We aim at identifying areas where government institutions at subnational level require support to optimise their public finance management practices, improve existing structures that would accelerate development.

“In the last eight months, its research team collected, analysed and validated data provided by the offices of Accountant-General, Supreme Audit Institutions, Public Account Committees and others to arrive at their results.”

Also, its Board Chairman, Rev. Polycarp Gbaja, stated that they believe Index 2022 Report will further provide necessary feedback to them and to other development institutions on areas of accountability actors that require support.

Gbaja declared: Although Bauchi and Osun were ranked first in the 2021 report, the assessment itself provided significant diagnostic feedback to us and we have leveraged that to begin to assist five states under MacArthur Foundation Audit programme.

Responding on behalf of Akwa Ibom, its Auditor-General, Mr. Isaiah Ntekim, said the new position was as a result of mobilising all critical stakeholders in the sector through an accountability forum to stabilise the Public Account Committees in the state.

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