By Olasunkanmi Onifade
The Registrar and Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Treasury Management, (CITM) Dr Adedoyin Olumide has attributed the persistent challenge of unimplementable budgets to the lack of alignment between tax systems and treasury operations.
Adedoyin made the call at the institute’s Mandatory Continuous Professional Training, induction and recertification programme in Abuja, on Wednesday where new members were formally inducted as bonafide professionals.
Speaking on the issue, he stressed the need for a coordinated financial management framework that integrates tax processes, budgeting, and treasury functions to drive national development.
“We want to play the position of advocacy, advisory and assistance to government in creating a financial management system that aligns tax processes, budgeting and treasury operations for national development,” he stated.
He noted that while tax processes and treasury functions are essential components of public finance, their effectiveness depends on how well they are harmonised.
“You cannot take away tax processes or treasury functions, but they must be properly aligned to avoid budgets that cannot be implemented,” he added.
Olumide emphasised that without proper coordination, governments risk producing budgets that fail at the implementation stage, thereby slowing economic growth and development.
He called on the Federal Government to partner with the institute to strengthen Nigeria’s public financial management system through improved integration of tax, budgeting and treasury functions.
He said the event, themed “Financial Management Integration: Aligning Tax, Budgeting and Treasury for National Development,” was aimed at building capacity and promoting best practices in financial governance.
“We want to play the position of advocacy, advisory and assistance to government in creating a financial management system that aligns tax processes, budgeting and treasury operations for national development.
“You cannot take away tax processes or treasury functions, but they must be properly aligned to avoid budgets that cannot be implemented”.
In a separate interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Olumide urged the Federal Government to prioritise inclusive budgeting by engaging stakeholders and aligning revenue sources with community needs.
According to him, effective treasury management must address leakages and wastage, adding that continuous training and retraining of personnel is critical to achieving efficiency.
Olumide noted that allowing professional bodies like CITM to support training and policy development would significantly reduce fraud and misapplication of public resources.
“Once CITM is allowed to partner with government, about 85 per cent of what we call fraud will be a thing of the past,” he said, attributing past issues such as ghost workers to lapses in financial management systems.
Also speaking, the Chairman, Board of Fellows of the institute, Dr Mohamed Buba, emphasised the need for stronger stakeholder engagement across all stages of public financial management.
He said integrating budget formulation, execution and treasury operations would enhance transparency and accountability.
“Once you have it integrated, everything would be excellent, but if treated in a disaggregated form, it becomes a problem,” he said. (NAN)
Edited by Tosin Kolade
