Budgit has sought enhanced collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in the area of federal and State governments’ budget implementation monitoring.
The request was made on Friday, May 2, 2025, when Yahyala Kwaga, Group Head, Research and Policy Advisory, Open Government Partnership and Institutional Partnership (OGIP) led top officials of the organisation on a courtesy visit to EFCC’s Executive Chairman, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, at the Commission’s corporate headquarters in Abuja.
“We would like to enhance the reporting and escalation channels for capital projects in particular, because once there are channels of communication that are clear, that are direct, that provide anonymity, it would help in reporting and easing the work of your investigation departments. We would love to see more collaborations. We want to provide our expertise, our capacity for evidence-based policy making. We will be supporting legislative oversight. We know that there’s a National Assembly Committee on anti-corruption agencies. We can collaborate and partner with you and the National Assembly Committee in building institutional transparency tools, focusing on multi-stakeholder engagements and at the same time, strengthening the voices of people in communities.
“We believe that the EFCC is poised to collaborate with us to execute better monitoring of capital projects at both the federal level and even at the state level because state official that we collaborate with express concern that there is some level of mismatch in projects by federal lawmakers in the states, so there is some work that the EFCC can do in that regard,” he said.
Kwaga harped on the need to formalise the working relationship between the EFCC and his organisation. “We already have a relationship with the EFCC. We would love to have it formalized at some point in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding. That would provide some details and clarity on expectations, roles and responsibilities. And it would really be a significant milestone in our relationship moving forward,” he said.
He identified joint monitoring and mission exercises, capacity building and training as significant lines of collaboration with the Commission. Others are in data and intelligence sharing and public awareness campaigns.
In his response, Olukoyede appreciated the longstanding collaboration between the Commission and Budgit, stating that the EFCC will spare nothing in ensuring a diligent budget implementation monitoring at the federal and state levels.
“Thank you for your partnership with us over the years. I have always been part of your engagement because of the importance I attach to our relationship with you. For all your efforts and collaboration I want to say thank you, as well as for finding us worthy of partnership in your efforts. I can assure you that we will engage you in areas where we need to,” he said.
Speaking on the necessity of capital project implementation, the EFCC boss stated that. “We have deployed adequate human resources in ensuring that we deliver on project implementation monitoring at the federal and state levels. As I have always said, if we can do 50 percent of our capital projects in a year, the country would be fine. Capital budget implementation is an area that we need to look at very seriously, particularly now that there is not much money available. The little money that is disbursed must be applied on what it is supposed to and people must have value for it.”
