From Maiharaji Altine Gusau
Zamfara state House of Assembly has passed the 2022 appropriation bill into law with some slight modifications.
This was contained in a statement by the Director General Press Affiras and public relations of the house, Malam Mustapha Jafaru Kaura and made available to newsmen on Thursday.
Mustapha said, the report was presented to the chamber of the House by the chairman House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Hon Shamsudeen Hassan Basko Talata Mafara CNA.
Hon. Basko said in order to achieve a realistic budget that was expected to perform creditably well, the committee observed that there were some facts that needed to be addressed.
Some of the observations and challenges that needed to be tackled according to Hon Hassan Basko included overlapping and duplication of responsibilities among some MDA’S in the state.
Others are, non or dismal performance of 2021 budget by some MDA’S as well owing to non release of fund.
His committee has also discovered non remittance of funds to the Board of internal revenue by the revenue generating agencies of government despite numerous resolutions of the House to that effect.
Hon Basko also lamented the lack of synergy between the state ministry of finance and that of budget and Economic planing with regards to postings and releases of funds in the appropriate books of accounts.
“There ia also complete lack of training among the finance and planing officers of the state regarding the concept of ipsas compliance budget”. Said Basko.
Considering the challenges, Hon Basko recommended to the House nine far reaching recommendations which when fully implemented would go along way in ensuring a well enhanced and better performance in the 2022 budget .
His committee therefore downsised the budget by about N765 million naira -by reducing the size of capital expenditure from N97 billion to N85 billion while recurrent was increased from the initial N63 billon naira to N73 billion naira in order to be in conformity with ipsas standards and current economic realities of the country, among other recommendations submitted by his committee.
Shortly after reading and subsequent laying of the report before the mace of the House, the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Nasiru Mu’azu Magarya allowed for debate and contributions from the members which is part of the norms of the House.
After series of deliberations, observations and some arguments on the report by some notable members of the House which include Hon Yusuf Alhassan Kanoma representing Maru North, Deputy House leader, Hon Nasiru Bello Lawal Bungudu as well as Deputy Speaker Hon Musa Bawa Musa Yankuzo, the Speaker read all the nine recommendations and were later approved by the House and later passed the 2022 appropriation bill into law .
In his overriding comment, the Speaker thanked the chairman and members of finance and appropriation committee under Hon Shamsudeen Hassan Basko for a good job and wonderful performance .
He said he observed with keen interest that, the rudiments aspect of budget defence by MDA’S in the state was not an easy one but commended the resilience of the chairman and members of the committee and urged them to always maintain the tempo.
The House also yesterday considered and adopted the Hon Yusuf Alhassan Kanoma’s report on a bill for a law to repeal Sokoto State Teachers Service Board law cap 39A of 1992 and to re-enact zamfara State Teachers’ Service Board law 2021.
The bill was giben the third and final reading and also passed it into law.
Earlier in yesterday’s plenary the House critically considered an executive Bill which was for a law to amend Zamfara State Debt Management Office (Establishment) law No 03 of 2020.
This led the House to break into committees in order to discuss the burning issues surrounding the amendments law and later reconvened to plenary and also passed it Into law with some modifications and amendments.
The Speaker, while commending his colleagues, management, and entire staff of the Assembly for arriving at this destination, also announced the closure of House for three weeks recess effective from yesterday Wednesday 22nd December 2021 -Wednesday 17th January 2022 insha-Allahu.
