KEY POINTS

• The US State Department says Nigeria failed its minimum fiscal transparency test for a second straight year.
• The report cited a vague budget, a credibility gap in execution, a non-independent audit office and opaque procurement.
• It urged six fixes, while the Presidency stressed reforms and BudgIT agreed budget-implementation reporting stayed unclear.

Nigeria has failed the United States’ minimum fiscal transparency requirements for a second straight year, with the State Department saying the country made no significant progress in opening up its public finances in 2025.

In its 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report, released Tuesday, the department assessed 139 governments and the Palestinian Authority, and only 73 met the minimum standard. It grouped Nigeria among 53 countries that made no progress, alongside Algeria, Angola, Uganda and Tanzania, while larger economies such as China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia also fell short.

A vague budget and weak audits

According to the report, Nigeria’s budget documents did not give a substantially complete picture of government revenue and expenditure, nor did they break down spending for executive offices. Moreover, the department flagged a credibility gap, since actual revenues and expenditures did not reasonably match the enacted budget. That marked a decline from 2025, when Washington judged Nigeria’s figures broadly reliable.

Furthermore, the report faulted Nigeria’s oversight institutions. It said the Office of the Auditor-General lacked independence and failed to publish substantive reports, even though it could access the executed budget. The department also said the government did not publish its executive budget proposal in good time, kept procurement contracts out of public view and withheld the basic terms of natural-resource concessions.

Reforms and rebuttals

Still, the report noted some progress. Nigeria published its enacted budget and end-of-year report online, made debt obligations public and ran a sovereign wealth fund with a sound legal framework. However, the department said those gains did not lift the country above the threshold, and it urged six fixes, including timely budget publication, a full breakdown of revenue and spending and a stronger, independent audit office.

Consequently, the Presidency said it noted the findings but urged context, stressing that transparency remained a priority and pointing to reforms such as the Open Treasury initiative. Meanwhile, BudgIT’s country director, Vahyala Kwaga, agreed with much of the report, and he said budget-implementation reporting stayed unclear while the president had yet to sign a pending audit reform bill.