- FG to Hire Foreign Consultants to Monitor MDAs’ Budgets
Concerned about the level of the implementation of capital and recurrent overheads in the budgets of Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the Federal Government is planning to hire foreign consultants to monitor the financial records of these agencies.
This is part of the plan by the Federal Government to strengthen the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) content in the 2016 as well as the 2017/2019 budgets.
Efforts are on to engage the consultants, but not before necessary protocols and hand-over processes across the agencies are concluded.
The idea may be one of the key recommendations presented to the Federal Government by former Georgian Prime Minister, Nika Gilauri, who is also the foreign consultant to the National Economic Team headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Part of the recommendations of the foreign consultant is to inspect all the financial records of MDAs. In his reaction, the President of Nigerian Economic Society (NES) Prof. Ben Aigbokhan commended the move, especially if Nigerians in the diaspora would be given an opportunity to be part of it.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government yesterday said it was awaiting the decision of the Senate on the Medium Term Expenditure (MTE) plan framework 2017-19 submitted to the upper chamber for ratification.
In an interview yesterday, a source said the government was convinced that the document would assist in effective fiscal planning.
“The Federal Government is still awaiting the decision of the Senate on the document. The opinion of one man cannot be said to be the view of the entire chamber. We have done our bit. We have to allow the Senate do theirs. That is how it is done,” the source said.
