Institute Urges Govt To Strengthen Public Financial Management

Registrar and chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Treasury Management, Dr Adedoyin Olumide, has appealed to the federal government to partner with the institute to strengthen Nigeria’s public financial management system through improved integration of tax, budgeting and treasury functions.

Adedoyin made the call at the institute’s Mandatory Continuous Professional Training, induction and recertification programme held in Abuja, where new members were inducted as bonafide professionals.

He said the event, themed “Financial Management Integration: Aligning Tax, Budgeting and Treasury for National Development,” was aimed at building capacity and promoting best practices in financial governance.

“We want to play the position of advocacy, advisory and assistance to government in creating a financial management system that aligns tax processes, budgeting and treasury operations for national development,” he said.

“You cannot take away tax processes or treasury functions, but they must be properly aligned to avoid budgets that cannot be implemented.”

He urged the federal government to prioritise inclusive budgeting by engaging stakeholders and aligning revenue sources with community needs. According to him, effective treasury management must also address leakages and wastages, adding that continuous training and retraining of personnel in financial management was critical to achieving efficiency.

Adedoyin noted that allowing professional bodies like the institute to support training and policy development would significantly reduce fraud and misapplication of public resources.

“Once CITM is allowed to partner with government, about 85 per cent of what we call fraud will be a thing of the past,” he said, attributing past issues such as ghost workers to lapses in financial management systems.

Also speaking, the chairman, Board of Fellows of the institute, Dr. Mohamed Buba, emphasised the need for stronger stakeholder engagement across all stages of public financial management. He said integrating budget formulation, execution and treasury operations would enhance transparency and accountability, adding that “once you have it integrated, everything would be excellent, but if treated in disaggregated form, it becomes a problem.”