World Bank SFTAS Fund: FG disburses N352b to states

World bank SFTAS Fund: FG disburses N352b to states

The federal government said it has disbursed the sum of N351. 6 billion to state governments under the World Bank’s States’ Fiscal Transparency Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS).

The SFTAS, a Programme of the World Bank was initiated in 2018 in order to encourage state governments to adopt fiscal measures that conform with openness and accountability in public finance administration.

The National Programme Coordinator, Mr. Stephen Okon, disclosed this while briefing Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), on SFTAS programme sustainability, in Abuja, at  the weekend.

While responding to questions from journalists, Mr. Okon said “SFTAS had started disbursing the second tranche of the $750 million long ago and in fact it might interest you to note that up till now about N262 billion naira have being disbursed to states as grants for achievements made in respect of the what we call the Disbursement Linked Indicators (DLIs)”.

He added that SFTAS was “in the process of making more disbursement for the 2020 Annual Performance Assessment (APA) and the 2021 APA. The 2021 APA which we expect to disburse in October will be the last of this disbursement”.

The sum of $1. 5 billion has so far been made available by the World bank to the federal government with which to encourage the state governments to be more accountable.