Nasarawa Wants Loan From FG; Ready To Fulfill Conditions

The Nasarawa State Government has submitted an expression of interest to access the concessional loan granted to states facing financial difficulties by the Federal Government.

State Commissioner of Finance, Dr. Dominic Bako told Channels Television that he was optimistic that the state would fulfill the 22 conditions given by the Federal Government, as some of them have long been practised by the state. Besides, the conditions are in the best interest of the state to prevent diversion of funds.

Bako guaranteed that the loan would be properly utilized in line with the vision of the Federal Government.

Here are some of the conditions given by the federal government:

* Publish audited annual financial statements within nine months of financial year end.

*Comply with the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS)

* Publish state budget online annually

* Publish budget implementation performance report online quarterly

* Develop standard IPSAS compliant software to be offered to states for use by state and local governments

* Set realistic and achievable targets to improve independently generated revenue (from all revenue generating activities of the state in addition to tax collections) and ratio of capital to recurrent expenditure

* Implement a centralised Treasury Single Account (TSA) in each state

* Have quarterly financial reconciliation meetings with federal government to cover VAT, PAYE remittances, refunds on government projects, Paris Club and other accounts

* Share the database of companies within each state with the Federal Inland Revenue service (FIRS). The objective is to improve VAT and PAYE collection

* Introduce a system to allow for the immediate issue of VAT/WHT certificates on payment of invoices. Review all revenue related laws and update obsolete rates/tariffs

* Set limits on personnel expenditure as a share of total budgeted expenditure