ECOWAS Women Lawmakers' Group Says It's Kept in the Dark on Its Own Budget

The ECOWAS Female Parliamentarians Association says it has been shut out of decisions over how its own annual budget is planned and spent, with its leadership unable to account for funds the association is allocated each year, according to a report by Guardian Nigeria. The complaint surfaced at a session of the ECOWAS Parliament, where ECOFEPA members said the administrative department that controls the association's finances has kept them largely in the dark.

Newly elected ECOFEPA President Honourable Moussokoura Chantal Fanny said she had not even been briefed on the executive's terms of reference or given basic information about the association's finances since taking office. Members said they are unsure which account actually holds ECOFEPA's funds or who the authorized signatories on it are, and that this information has never been formally shared with them. Most of what they learn about the association's own programming comes secondhand, through the parliament's clerk, rather than through any direct financial reporting to the executives meant to be overseeing it.

Members described the arrangement as an administrative department effectively running the budget on the association's behalf without involving the elected leadership in planning decisions, and called for a change that would give ECOFEPA's own officers real visibility into, and input on, how their annual budget is spent going forward.