Federal Government’s Open Treasury Portal that gives details on the revenues and spending of ministries, departments and agencies of the federal government has gone down.
The portal, http://opentreasury.gov.ng, according to reports by Daily Trust, went down on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
The portal used to provide comprehensive data of all MDAs on budget implementation, financial records as well as transactions above certain thresholds.
Director of Information, Press and Public Relations in the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Henshaw Ogubike, on Tuesday, has failed to keep to his promise to respond to calls when contacted on the matter.
Ogubike later sent a text message requesting that a message be sent to him. However, as of the time of filing this report, Ogubike had yet to reply to the inquiry on why the portal has been inaccessible for days
As of the time of this report, no statement has been issued by the government as to why the portal has remained inactive.
In December 2019, the launched the portal to ensure transparency in government spending.
President Muhammadu Buhari had directed MDAs to publish daily treasury summary statements of financial inflows and outflows.
The president maintained that the daily treasury statements by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) would give the breakdown of all agencies responsible for each payment above N5 million.
Also, the AGF and all MDAs are expected to publish monthly budget performance reports, including their functions and economic activities performed by them within seven days to the end of the month.
While inaugurating the portal, former Executive Secretary, Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Mr. Waziri Adio, in a series of tweets via his Twitter handle @Waziriadio, emphasised that all MDAs were mandated to publish, on a daily basis, reports of payments in excess of N5m, monthly budget performance and other sundry official financial dealings.
Adio had tweeted, “With the launch of the Open Treasury Portal today (December 9, 2019) by President Muhammadu Buhari, all MDAs are to publish the following: daily reports of payments from N5m; monthly budget performance; quarterly financial statements; and annual financial statements prepared in compliance with IPSAS.
“All the reports are to be published within stipulated deadlines on this portal: http://opentreasury.gov.ng. The portal will be open to and can be accessed by all.”
