The Federal Government, on Wednesday, revealed that states had received N471.9bn of the $1.5bn World Bank-assisted States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability Programme for Results.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Dr Zainab Ahmed, disclosed this at the launch of the States Charter to sustain fiscal transparency, accountability and sustainability reforms at the State House Banquet Hall, Abuja.

Ahmed, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Aliyu Ahmed, said beyond benefitting from the grants, all the 36 states had domesticated the fiscal reforms in their public financial management systems by adopting the appropriate processes and practices as well as legal and regulatory frameworks which were already yielding positive outcomes.

According to her, the state governments had demonstrated high level of ownership, active peer learning and peer competition which culminated in strong performance by most states in all the Key Results Areas of the SFTAS Programme, which included: increasing fiscal transparency and accountability; strengthening domestic revenue mobilization; increasing efficiency in public expenditure and strengthening debt transparency and sustainability.

She said, “Indeed, the very high level of political visibility and implementation structures created across the 36 states contributed largely to the successful implementation of the Programme over the period 2018 to 2022.”