The United States Government has said that the Nigerian government is not making significant progress in fiscal transparency, stating that its budget documents did not provide sufficient information on the country’s revenues and expenditures or adequately break down spending for executive offices.
This is contained in the US Department of State’s 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report, published on Tuesday.
According to the report, although Nigeria made some key fiscal documents publicly available, it failed to provide a comprehensive picture of government revenues and expenditures.
The report equally raised concerns over discrepancies between Nigeria’s approved budget and its actual implementation.
It also condemned Nigeria’s supreme audit institution, saying it did not meet international standards of independence or publish substantive reports, despite having access to the entire executed budget.
On public procurement, the US government said Nigeria continued to face transparency challenges, particularly regarding access to information on government contracts.
“Actual revenues and expenditures did not reasonably correspond to those in the enacted budget. The government did not publish accessible information on public procurement contracts,” it stated.
Meanwhile, the report acknowledged some areas of progress, noting that Nigeria had made information on debt obligations, including major state-owned enterprise debt, publicly available, adding that the country’s sovereign wealth fund had a sound legal framework and disclosed information about its funding and general approach to withdrawals.
It stated that the Nigerian government had established legal criteria and procedures for awarding natural resource extraction contracts and licences and followed existing regulations in practice.
To improve fiscal transparency, the US government recommended that Nigeria make its executive budget proposal widely and easily accessible to the public, including online.
