The Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) said between January-July, 2022, Nigeria has saved the total of Operating Surplus and Iiternally Generated Revenue of over N729 billion through its Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The Chairman of the commission, Victor Muruako, disclosed this at the October monthly lunch time seminar organised by the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) in Abuja, with the ‘Strengthening Fiscal Transparency, Accountability & Prudence through the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007.’

Muruako, Chairman, also highlighted some results achieved by the commission from monitoring and enforcing transparency, accountability and prudence, the core mandates of establishing it.

Some of them according to him includes, ““Treasury Single Account (TSA), Open Governance Portal (OGP), Open Treasury Portal (OTP), Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), Regular publication of monthly financial disbursement to the three tires of Govt. from the Federation Account after successive FAAC Meetings.

“The introduction of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) which is a public accounting system whereby ALL the FG receipt, revenue and income are collected into ONE single Account maintained and managed by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

“The FRC has been instrumental in driving up the Independent Revenue of the FG and this has helped to fill some of the gaps arising from reduced revenue from oil.
“In 2020, Operating Surplus and IGR that accrued to the FG summed up to N533 billion.

“In 2021, the sum jumped by over 100% year-on-year to N1.25 trillion – the first time in the history of the nation that the Independent Revenue exceeded the one trillion Naira mark.

“As of end of July this year, the total of Operating Surplus and IGR had arrived at N729 billion,” Maruoko explained.

The Chairman also said the commission has continued to reassure the nation that the it is all out to exercise its functions in a manner that will help to achieve the projection of N1.8 trillion for the 2022.

The Chairman however said in spite of these, the act is not devoid of challenges, such as its failure to provide for some offenses, the stipulation of the appropriate sanctions/punishments for defaulters, and that there is lack of holistic adoption of the act by states and Local Governments which gulp more than 48% of the national resources and a major drawback to the quest for transparency and accountability.
“Although, the publication of daily payment report by the OAGF has recorded significant compliance since inception, however, it appears that most MDAs, have not been forthcoming with up-to-date information on their daily financial transaction on the open treasury portal,” Moruako added.

On his part, BPSR DG, Dasuki I. Arabi, said FRC was established by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007, to promote a transparent and accountable government financial management framework for Nigeria.

He also said, “the Bureau’s vision of seeing a Nigeria with a well-functioning, effective and efficient socio-economic system is shared by the vision of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) ‘To establish a transparent and accountable government management framework for Nigeria, thus, it is my strong believe that today’s interaction will be both educative, enlightening and fulfilling to all.”
Aliyu Umar Aliyu

Fintech enablement partner Ukheshe continues to execute on its ongoing partnership agreement with enterprise loyalty and rewards company Gratifii.

The agreement gives both organisations and their clients access to industry-leading payments solutions as well as a loyalty rewards platform, explains Pieter de Wet, President of Business Development International at Ukheshe. “Integrating Gratifii’s Mosaic loyalty platform into our Eclipse payment orchestration platform has given our existing and future customers added value, by allowing them to offer their own customers a loyalty programme. This programme can be added seamlessly to card payments – with no additional cards required, and no additional steps.”

Partnerships like this have the potential to be game-changing, says Mark Schoombie, Gratifii’s Chief Technology Officer. “Current payment and loyalty industries have a somewhat narrow focus where finance technology focuses on payments, while loyalty companies focus on driving loyalty. But the loyalty market needs payment technology to create strong data and recommendations, while loyalty programmes in the payments arena drives more payments. Gratifii is proving that loyalty programmes can drive greater revenues, increased basket size, and increased monthly visits. The combination of these two worlds is a powerful play in digital transformation and shared economies.”

Clients of Ukheshe and Gratifii who will use the Eclipse and Mosaic technology to offer embedded finance solutions and loyalty rewards to their own customers, will not only benefit from this added value, but also the combination of two world-class platforms with state-of-the-art technology. They won’t have the stress of planning integration timings with multiple teams, with all those added costs, to fulfil their requirements. “Loyalty programmes in the past have been hard to understand and difficult to execute because of the rate of change,” says Schoombie. “Mosaic prides itself on flexibility and configurability. Changing rules in the system takes seconds, giving our clients the ability to test, try and change without cost. It also allows for targeting specifications, based on segments, tiers, customer preferences, transactional behaviours, and more. We provide a cost-effective solution that is simple to use, simple to implement and simple to adjust without long development lead times or cost.”

Ukheshe’s Eclipse platform, too, has been providing embedded finance before the term even existed, offering non-financial companies ways to integrate payments, transactions, transfers and other digital solutions into their businesses in a seamless way, without the associated development and compliance costs. “Essentially, our platform lets our clients offer banking as a service at lower costs and with less hassle, all through a single platform,” says De Wet. “Many APIs only provide one set of APIs per fintech proposition, whereas Eclipse provides a number of restful APIs – meaning multiple payment solutions through a single-entry point. Our clients only have to integrate once and can then access a number of services and build their offering to their own clients from there, such as digital KYC and onboarding, the opportunity to access issuing and acquiring services such as physical and virtual cards, QR and VAS – all within a single integration and location.”

Importantly, such partnerships create a truly shared economy, because the end consumer also benefits from safe, convenient financial services and now, loyalty rewards – ultimately adding value to the user experience. “Ukheshe’s vision is to change the financial landscape by making true financial inclusion a reality. And offering these benefits to our customers and the end consumer is another step in that direction,” says De Wet.