The Chairman of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Victor Muruako, has called on the National Assembly to complete the amendment to the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) to strengthen the functions of the agency.
Maruako in a statement through the spokesman, Bede Anyanwu, yesterday noted that the use of legislation to moderate the behavior of fiscal agents and replace discretionary powers with fiscal rules, ceilings and timelines is reckoned as most proper for a fiscal environment that has suffered considerable abuse.
He said the Act went through a public hearing in the Senate over a year ago, as it would place the commission in a better position to support fiscal policy sustainability and straighten public finance management in Nigeria.
The chairman said since the creation of the commission, it has been operating without templates, guidelines, handover notes or depth of access to requisite manpower development to guide it for its operations.
“Hence, the staff, being pioneers in the fiscal responsibility monitoring and enforcement space, found themselves doing the work of both visionaries and operators.”
He however said an approval of the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, led to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) deploying a mission to support it in the fiscal monitoring framework.
The mission spent two weeks with the management and technical staff of FRC, which he said has been the best support in over 10 years.