George Mukundi, former Head, African Governance Architecture (AGA) Secretariat, Department of Political Affairs, African Union Commission (AUC), says Nigeria ranks below 20 per cent in making information on security spending available to the public.
Mukundi made the call in Abuja at a two-day International Conference on Security Budget in Nigeria.
The conference with the theme ‘Transparency and Accountability: Issues in Security Budget in Nigeria’ was organised by the CLEEN Foundation, a civil society organisation (CSO).
He identified limited public participation, lack of clarity and coherence of national security sector policy and strategic plan as some of the issues affecting security spending in some African countries, including Nigeria.
Other issues, according to him, include: inefficient implementation of the budget and poor coordination, limited transparency, accountability, corruption especially related to procurement, as well as disconnect between planning, budgeting and spending.
Mukundi said: “The way forward for African nation’s is to understand that security budget should be made available to the public. The public is a beneficiary of the budget that government creates, plans and costs.
“The citizens should be able to tell what the government plans for them. They should be able to tell if the government is spending on priority projects.”
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(Article Source & Credit: Independent Nigeria)
