The Federal Government on Monday rejected a generalised approach for financial reform initiatives in Nigeria, stressing that it would rather prefer specific measures to reform the country’s financial management system.
Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, made this public in Abuja while playing host to the Partners of Ernst & Young in his office led by the Advisory Leader, West Africa, Ben Afudego.
Idris lauded the credentials of EY Consulting and stated that the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation was open to value addition and with the firm on financial reforms but advised against a generalised approach. “The OAGF does not want a generalised approach; we want specifics. No more talking and meeting, we want to achieve results,” he said.
Idris, whose office anchored the Federal Government’s financial management reforms, noted that the overall success of the initiatives was hinged on implementation of result-oriented ideas.
He called on stakeholders that could add value to the government’s efforts to come up and further advocated for strong collaboration between some treasury departments and EY Consulting to drive government reforms with the application of technology. “We are open to new ideas; we are open to value addition. We believe if we get critical stakeholders, we can achieve even more successes in the reform initiatives,” Idris said.
He noted that individuals not directly involved in the implementation of the reforms were in a better position to assess the efforts of the Federal Government. “As much as we want improvements in our system and value addition, we don’t want generalised approach; we want specific approach. Come up with specific things you can do to add value, we want results,” he added.
In his response, Afudego said EY Consulting would want to work with the OAGF in revenue protection and improvement, asset tracking and monitoring, continuous process improvement, data analytics, among others.
He outlined several solutions developed by EY such as strategic planning and fiscal policy, budget process improvement, revenue administration reforms, etc, which were geared towards addressing all aspects of public financial management.