The Nigerian Government is one of 67 governments and authorities that failed to meet the minimum fiscal transparency requirements of the United States Government during the period between January 1 and December 31, 2025, according to the State Department’s “2026 Fiscal Transparency Report”, which reviewed 139 governments and entities around the world to determine their level of fiscal transparency.
The report, published by the State Department on August 11, 2026, describes the minimum fiscal transparency requirements and reviews the governments and entities assessed, most of which were identified as recipients of U.S. assistance in a 2014 Fiscal Transparency Report.
The Department evaluated the public availability, completeness, and reliability of budget documents, as well as the transparency of processes for awarding government contracts and licenses and public procurement contracts.
The report noted that during the review period, the Nigerian Government made its enacted budget and end-of-year report widely and easily accessible to the public, including online, but did not publish its executive budget proposal within a reasonable period.
It said that although the government made information on debt obligations, including major state-owned enterprise debt, publicly available, budget documents did not provide a substantially complete picture of the government’s revenues and expenditures, nor did they break down expenditures to support executive offices in the budget.
Besides, the report said, actual revenues and expenditures did not reasonably correspond to those in the enacted budget.
The report also stated that Nigeria’s “supreme audit institution did not meet international standards of independence or publish substantive reports but did have access to the entire executed budget.”
It said the sovereign wealth fund had a sound legal framework and disclosed its source of funding and general approach to withdrawals, adding that the government specified, in law, the criteria and procedures for awarding natural resource extraction contracts and licenses and followed existing regulations in practice.
However, the government did not publish accessible information on public procurement contracts.
The report outlined steps that Nigeria could take to improve fiscal transparency, including:
• Making its executive budget proposal widely and easily accessible to the public, including online;
• Providing in the budget a substantially complete picture of the government’s revenues and expenditures;
• Breaking down expenditures to support executive offices in the budget;
• Ensuring actual revenues and expenditures reasonably correspond to those in the enacted budget;
• Ensuring the supreme audit institution meets international standards of independence and publishes audit reports of the government’s executed budget; and
• Publishing accessible information on public procurement contracts.
The report, issued by the Department of State pursuant to section 7031(b)(2) of the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2026, concluded that, of the 139 countries (and the Palestinian Authority) evaluated, 73 governments met minimum fiscal transparency requirements while 67 did not meet the minimum requirements.
The Department identified governments that met the minimum fiscal transparency requirements for 2026 as including Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, The Bahamas, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote D’Ivoire, Croatia, Czechia, El Salvador, Estonia, Fiji, Georgia, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, India, and Indonesia.
The others are Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Federated States of Micronesia, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Namibia, Nepal, North Macedonia, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Serbia, Singapore, Seychelles, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor Leste, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Türkiye, Uganda, and Uruguay.
The annual reviews of fiscal transparency, mandated by the U.S. Congress to help ensure the “appropriate use of U.S. taxpayer funds related to foreign assistance”, also helps to create competitive business conditions for U.S. companies abroad by seeking to improve public financial management to reduce the risk of corruption and unfair practices in international markets, promote stronger industry standards to improve market access, reduce the risk of financial crimes, and require debt data disclosure to counter predatory lending.
