The Home Finance Department of the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning has requested from the World Bank, about $8.93million to purchase 21 items, including office stationery, supplies, furniture, equipment, and vehicles.
The requests had been made under the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability, SFTAS, project, which launched in 2018.
The SFTAS project, designed to strengthen transparency and accountability at the sub-national level, will be ending this year, 2022. While the money is a grant to state governments, it is also a loan to the Federal Government.
The procurement plan’s copy for the project spanning from February 2019 to August 2020 was recently obtained by PUNCH newspapers and according to the plan for the SFTAS project for the period revealed by the World Bank, the Home Finance Department had asked for an estimated amount of $25,713 to procure office stationery and supplies; then for the SFTAS Programme Coordinating Unit, another $33,000 was requested for office equipment and supplies.
$64,190 was requested for furniture items, to furnish and equip SFTAS Public Service Institute space; then $17,000 for additional office furniture and partitioning of the STFAS office, and then $17,250 for additional office equipment and furniture for the Debt Management Office.
The department also requested the sum of $25,000 for the procurement of video conferencing equipment for the SFTAS PCU and MiFi modems for the DMO. But the biggest request was for the provision of spatial data to states, which was estimated to cost $8m.
Not forgetting the $291,804 request for the procurement of project vehicles for the PCU and an independent verification agent.
Of the 21 items proposed, 3 were canceled, 1 was completed, and another was under implementation. Additionally, 4 were pending implementation, and the rest have only just been signed at the time the document was released in October 2022
