Gombe Gov’t presents accountability report on 2020 budget
Gombe Gov't presents accountability report on 2020 budget
Gombe Gov’t presents accountability report on 2020 budget
By Matthew Eloyi
Gombe State Government has presented an accountability report on the 2020 budget to help citizens have a good understanding of how expenditure affects them directly, foster greater understanding of how public funds are utilised, as well as contribute to the efforts of increasing government accountability on how it manages public funds.
The Government presented a 77 per cent Aggregate Revenue Performance from the Budget, which represents 126.44 billion naira, with a shortfall of 28.9 billion naira from both the Federation revenue account and Internally Generated Revenue, within a 75 per cent to 80 per cent performance.
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Speaking during the Citizens’ Accountability Report Meeting in Gombe, the Permanent Secretary, Gombe State Ministry of Finance, Mr. Ibrahim Jalo Ali, disclosed that there was a total expenditure of 25.6 per cent, representing 26.9 billion naira, less than the budgeted amount, which is 107.6 billion naira.
He said a closing balance of 14.8 billion naira was allowed, due to anticipated receipt for State Fiscal Transparency Accountability and Sustainability Grants in the final month of 2020.
According to him, Capital Expenditure took the major part of the Expenditure Shortfall, with the performance of less than 60 per cent, while much of the recurrent expenditure in 2020 was obligatory, based on revenue shortfall, while capital expenditure was largely focused on completing ongoing projects, with a very few new projects started.
He said overall, Health and Education sectors enjoyed the highest proportion of recurrent expenditure, while Works and education received the highest proportion of capital expenditure.
The Permanent Secretary said despite the passage of the Budget on 9 December 2019, and its implementation commencement on 1 January 2020, the advent of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), Pandemic and its attendant consequences on the economy informed the revision and passage of the supplementary budget on 15 July 2020, while its General Virement was prepared and approved on 30 October 2020.
“As you are all aware, the pandemic, the government quickly made and some adjustments. There was some increment on 30 thousand minimum wage, which the government quickly suspended. The government quickly realigned the budget. We quickly made a Supplementary Budget which we still intimated the public. We did a citizen’s engagement to inform the public that we have a pandemic, resources expected are no longer realisable, so we want to revise the budget to reduce the level of expenditure we expected,” said Mr Jalo.
He added that the Citizen’s Accountability Report meeting was held simultaneously across the three Senatorial Districts, giving out the government’s performances in carrying out its duties and the utilisation of funds in the government coffers.
He said it was the first time the government was holding such an event, which was intended at bringing everyone on board because citizens had made inputs into the budget and would want to know how the budget was expended.
According to him, the report is based on the audited Financial Statement for the year 2020.
