By Abbas Bamalli
UNICEF in collaboration with the Katsina State Government, has engaged members of the State House of Assembly in a 4-day sensitisation workshop on transitioning to Programme Based Budgeting (PBB).
The workshop for social sectors committee Chairmen and their Secretaries was organised in Kano, with the support of UNICEF Kano Field office, through the state Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Katsina State is presently practising the incremental budgeting system.
In a presentation, one of the resource persons, Prof. Olumide Ayodele said that the workshop was to deepen the knowledge of the legislature on Public Financial Management (PFM).
He said that PFM basically dealt with all aspects of resource generation, allocation and expenditure management in government geared towards efficient delivery of public goods and services.
According to him, it is also aimed to explain the roles of the legislature in ensuring accountability, transparency, effectiveness, and efficiency in the use of public resources.
“It’s also to clarify the importance of a comprehensive Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) in achieving policy-plan-budget linkage and the roles of the state assembly,” Ayodele said.
Dr Chinedu Eze, also another resource person, said that programme-budgeting was the budget method that organised the budget around programmes that were linked to the government’s policy objectives.
“The budget is classified in terms of programmes, rather than along organisational lines, programme budgeting requires that the objectives may stretch beyond a single fiscal year.
“In addition, programme budgeting requires effective measures, which means the measurement of outputs and outcomes and it focuses explicitly on budgetary choices among competing policies.
“The programme budgeting has had an impact where programmes have been ministry or, at most, sector-specific,” Eze said.
Earlier, the State Commissioner of Budget and Economic Planning, Alhaji Bello Kagara said that the workshop came at the right time when the state government was preparing the 2025 budget.
He said that the workshop was important, especially for the legislature who were in charge of overseeing the overall process of the budget implementation.
According to Kagara, the workshop is important because of the lawmakers’ role in ensuring that what they approved is seeing the light of the day, by achieving its overall objectives.
He explained that budgeting was a clear strategy, political document and also an instrument for the attainment of the socio-economic yearnings of the citizens.
“It’s also a clear window for the bridging of the gap between the rich and the poor, therefore it’s a window of hope for the common man,” he said.
He added that no matter the amount of money spent, as long as it did not go to the right project, ensure that implementation was done the right way and the right quality of project was delivered, that money would be wasted.
Speaking, the Speaker of the Assembly, Alhaji Nasir Yahaya-Daura commended the organisers for improving their knowledge on the process of migrating to the new budgeting system.
He assured the commitment of the lawmakers towards making proper use of the new system to ensure the well-being of many citizens of the state.
The speaker assured that the assembly was always concerned about the people’s interest and would continue to ensure that programmes were initiated and executed based on needs and priorities.
NAN
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