Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed was appointed Minister of Finance, Budget & National Planning on August 21, 2019. This position combines responsibilities she’s held in the past as Minister of Finance and also as Minister of State for Budget & National Planning.
Prior to this, Mrs. Ahmed was the Nigeria’s Minister of Finance from September 14, 2018 to May 29, 2019. In this position, her responsibilities included the management and control of Nigeria's public finance, with the specific functions of preparing annual estimates of revenue and expenditure for the Federal Government; formulating fiscal policies; mobilizing domestic and external financial resources through both internal and external financial institutions, for development purposes; monitoring government revenue from oil and non-oil resources; supervising the insurance industry, the securities and exchange regulator and other aspects of the financial markets; and managing sub-national public finances in terms of the revenue allocation and distribution to the federating States and Local Governments in Nigeria. She worked closely with leadership of the Central Bank of Nigeria to coordinate the fiscal and monetary policies of the Federal Government of Nigeria. In her capacity as Minister of Finance, Mrs. Ahmed spearheaded the development and launch of the Strategic Revenue Growth Initiatives (SRGI), a cross-agency suite of interventions aimed at boosting revenues in Nigeria. She also launched Project Lighthouse, a data-driven artificial intelligence engine that supports the development of a more efficient revenue assessment methodology that analyses and provides an analytic view of revenue sources across the country, optimizes the collection of those revenues and ensures that major revenue loopholes are plugged and revenue collection is dramatically improved. This was ratified by the Federal Executive Council on May 9, 2019.
Before this, Mrs. Ahmed was Nigeria’s Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, from November 11, 2015 to September 13, 2018 responsible for Budget Implementation, Budget Monitoring & Evaluation, Donor Coordination, as well as managing the National Social Investment Program targeted at enhancing social investments in the health and education. In this capacity, she was also responsible for supporting Micro, Small, and Medium Size Enterprises. She was Chair of the Inter-Ministerial Task Team, leading Coordination of the Humanitarian and Development Response in the North East Nigeria.
Mrs. Zainab Ahmed has served as a member of the International Board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), and an incoming Co-Chair of the Open Governance Partnership (OGP).
Mrs. Ahmed has served in the Nigerian Public Service in various high-ranking positions, which include; the Executive Secretary and National Coordinator of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), from 2010 to 2015. Under her leadership, NEITI attained “EITI Compliant Status” in 2011 and Nigeria received the “Best Implementing Country” award in 2013.
Mrs. Zainab Ahmed has also served the Country at the sub-national level. She was the Managing Director of the Kaduna Investment Company Ltd from 2009 to 2010. She was also the Chief Finance Officer of MTEL from 2002-2009, and rose to be the Deputy General Manager.
Mrs. Ahmed graduated with B.Sc. Accounting from the Prestigious Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria and studied for her MBA at the Ogun State University, Ago Iwoye, Nigeria. She is a fellow of many professional bodies like the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN) and Institute of Company and Commercial Accountants (ICCA) among many others. She is also a member of several professional bodies like Chartered Institute of Taxation (CITN) and the Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM).
As a seasoned Accountant, who has served in both the Public and Private Sectors, she brings to bear, in her new role at Nigeria’s Ministry of Finance, Budget & National Planning, her considerable knowledge and experience in Financial Reporting, Public Financial Management, Budget Formulation and Execution, Public Sector Reform, Natural Resource Accountability, National Projects Management, as well as Macroeconomic, Monetary and Fiscal Policy Coordination.
