By Ndahi Marama, Maiduguri
The Borno State government has won four awards on the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability, SFTAS, budget performances in 2022.
The awards are to strengthen the fiscal sustainability, transparency and accountability of implementing the 36 states’ annual budgets.
In a breakdown of the assented 2023 budget, on Wednesday, in Maiduguri, the Commissioner of Finance, Budget and Economic Planning, Adamu Lawan, disclosed, “The Budget of Continuity for Sustainability is N235.33 billion, while its recurrent and capital expenditures stood at N104.25 billion and N131.1 billion respectively.”
He said that there is also an expected rise in local revenue collections; because of continuous enforcement of paying ground rents among other identified leakages.
He added, “The enforcement of the payments of ground rents has also improved the Internally Generated Revenues, IGR, by 25 per cent.”
He, however noted that the 2023 budget was, however, less than 2022 budget by 14.6 per cent.
Speaking on the awards, he said that the four-year programme started in May 2019, with the aim of strengthening fiscal sustainability, revenue mobilization and debt sustainability.
Besides, he added that the three fiscal measures have prevented financial crises, while implementing the annual budgets.
He added, “The strengthening of fiscal sustainability, revenue mobilisation and debt sustainability has increased the fiscal space for productive spending, and adding they will support growth and public service delivery.”
The commissioner noted that at the end of the programme, the state government won four different awards on the SFTAS.
He revealed, “The awards include an excellent performer in efficiency of public expenditures, very good performer on overall SFTAS, the top performer on improvement on critical DLIs, top performer on improvement on original DLIs and very good performer on debt sustainability.”
He, however, noted that the state’s total debts remain at N93 billion, while the targeted IGR of N30.2 billion was set for the 2023 budget.
According to him, this led the state government to secure N14.1 billion grants between 2021 and 2023 from the World Bank and other development partners.
He, therefore, warned accounting officers that the misappropriation of government funds will not be condoned.
Lawan urged them to adhere and operate strictly in accordance with laid down rules and regulations, even as he further warned, “Failure to adhere to the laid down rules and regulations will result to their Expenditure Authorization Form, EAF, not being signed.
He said that all request for funds either in form of memo or otherwise must be covered by approved provisions and balance of the budget, as well as certificate of no objection from the Bureau of Public Procurement, BPP.
Lawn enthused, “Most of the Ministries, Department and Agencies, MDAs, do not comply with this; and subsequently, failure to do this has violated the Public Procurement Act.”
He advised the MDAs to use the 2023 approved budget in quoting their organizational and economic codes and fill the EAFs when requesting for funds through memos.
Besides, he added that they are to submit expenditure returns of performance regularly.
