From Maiharaji Altine, Gusau
The state House of Assembly has drastically reduced the 2021 budget presented to the House by Governor Bello Matawalle due to low internally revenue generation caused by insecurity situation in the state.
In a statement, the Director General Press Affairs and Public Relations of the House, Mustafa Jafaru Kaura said, the budget was trimmed down from the initial figure of N126.7billion to N117. 5billion.
Kaura said, “in its resumed plenary, the House has carefully considered and studied a well comprehensive report from its committee on finance and appropriation that was saddled with the responsibility of revising the 2021 budget estimate as required by the executive last week”.
“The Acting chairman of the committee, Hon Shamsudeen Hassan Basko Talata Mafara said after due consideration of all the facts available, his committee was left with no option but to take the most dignifying steps of further trimming down the budget from the initial figure of N126,775 000.00 to N117,575,400,000,00.”
According to Hon Hassan Basko, “The protracted insecurity situation in the state that culminated into poor performance of internally generated revenue, effect of covid-19 pandemic that adversely affected the state and country in general has also affected negatively both the performance of capital expenditure which stood at only 32.8% as well as recurrent expenditure with dismal performance of only 27.6% respectively”.
He further explained that going by the fact available to his committee and after due consultations with relevant stakeholders from finance and Budget ministries as well as Board of internal Revenue of the state government, the decision to further trim down the budget by over N25 billion was considered not only to be the best but the last and final option.
He also informed his colleagues that part of the recommendations of his committee was that government should evolve more ways of generating income inform of revenue and also block all leakages of revenue generation from all revenue generating agencies of government in order to meet the yearnings and aspirations of the people .
He finally solicit the support and corporation of his colleagues to agree and give the report a third and final reading which contained the Sum of N117,575,400,000,00 as the real 2021 budget estimate for the year ending.
In his contribution a member representing Maru North Hon Yusuf Alhassan Kanoma agreed with Basko’s assertion that revenue generating agencies of government are cunning in terms of remittances to the state coffers citing tertiary institutions in the state such School of Nursing and midwifery as a case in point.
Kanoma said, “where they admitted more than 1,500 students with minimum of N5,000 as registration fees but ended up having nothing to remit to the state government’.
Also commenting the House leader Hon Faruk Musa Dosara said there was the need for the House to send letters to all revenue generating agencies of government to appear before the House and explain how they generate and spend their revenues in order to check their excesses and block all revenue leakages.
In his ruling Speaker Nasiru Mu’azu Magarya commended the committee for a job well done.
He however faulted the Committee on Public accounts for not effecting routine oversight function to all revenue agencies in the state and urge them to start doing so without further delay.
