Bauchi Assembly Pads 2017 Budget With N2.5 billion

The Bauchi State House of Assembly has signed the 2017 budget into law with an increase of over N2.5 billion, Daily Trust reports.

The budget proposal was reviewed upwards by the house to  N147,950 billion, from the N145,447 billion earlier submitted by Governor Mohammed Abubakar.

According to the state House of Assembly, the upward review was necessary in order to fund some critical sectors that require additional funding, take care of salaries, gratuities and capture grants from donor agencies to help coordinate the activities of development partners and boost internally generated revenue.

Speaker of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, Kawuwa Shehu Damina while announcing the unanimous resolution for the passage of the Bill commended all MDAs and sub committees of the Appropriation committee for ensuring the success of the budget.‎

He urged MDAs to look inwards for additional sources of funding and minimise wastage and pilfering of funds and other corrupt practices.‎

He noted that due process was strictly adhered to in compliance with the state fiscal responsibility act and the medium term expenditure framework contained in the 2017 to 2019 Fiscal strategy Paper.

Chairman of the House Committee on Budget and Appropriation Yakubu Abdullahi, while presenting the report of the committee, noted that cleaning services in all MDAs should be centralised in Ministry of Finance for prudence.

He also called for the implementation of the proposed Treasury Single Account (TSA) in Bauchi State to ascertain the true revenue status of the state.

He also urged government to adopt strategies that would help reduce the burden of gratuity being owed retirees in the state.

According to him, the committee has however made recommendations for the government to explore additional sources of revenue and introduce new tax regime to shore up the revenue profile.

The committee chairman also advised that the state planning commission and the treasury division should develop means through which performances from grants can be captured and monitored effectively.