State governments have agreed to reform their finances as well as that of their local governments under a Fiscal Sustainability Programme to ensure their long term viability. The Special Adviser Media to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Festus Akanbi disclosed this on Wednesday.
He explained that the 22-point fiscal reform action plan to be implemented by states under the programme mirrors the ongoing public financial management reforms being undertaken by the federal government, including: biometric capture of all civil servants, the establishment of an Efficiency Unit, implementation of Continuous Audit, improvement in Independently Generated Revenue (IGR) and measures to achieve sustainable debt management.
The reforms were unanimously agreed by state governors during the National Economic Council meeting that was held on Thursday 19th May.
“The federal government is developing a financial support structure which will be directly tied to the attainment of agreed fiscal reform milestones. The ultimate objective of the programme is to ensure that states are set on a path towards fiscal sustainability,” Akanbi added.
The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun recently said the N165 billion civil service monthly wage bill was over-bloated and can no longer be sustained by the federal government.
Adeosun, who provided details on the economic reform agenda of the federal government, said the N165 billion being paid to federal civil servants monthly represented 40 per cent of the total spending of government. She said the figure was too high and the government was pursuing aggressive measures to detect and prosecute ghost workers and other saboteurs in the system.
“We spend N165 billion every month on salaries and when I came in there was no checking.
“Now, we have created a unit assigned with the sole responsibility of checking the salaries and catching those behind the over-bloated salaries,” she had said.
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