Director lauds BudgIT 2020 fiscal performance Gombe ranking
The Director Final Accounts Office of the Accountant General Gombe State Mohammed Yusuf Kulani says a survey conducted by BudgIT an independent organisation in 2020 ranked Gombe among the top ten states in terms of fiscal performance.
Speaking to PERISCOPE NIGERIA after a pause and reflect session organised by USAID state-to-state activity Gombe office, the Director said this indeed is a tremendous success story in the fiscal performance of the state, adding that Gombe was ranking twenty seventh in the past years.
He said, “The state to State activity built our capacity on how to do our work and I can proudly say Gombe is now ranked among the first ten states in Nigeria.”
He commended the present administration for abiding to the best practice done world wide and state to state activity for the training and retraining of key staff and it technical support which led to skyrocketing of the fiscal performance of the state.
Kulani said the best practices which led to the success story included transparent budget preparation and execution.
He said, “Before you prepare a budget you must look out for what the people want: that is citizens involvement. The citizens tell government what they want and at the end of the year,the citizen hold government accountable as to if what they want have been implemented or not.”
He said prior to the coming of this administration, State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainabilty SFTAS, and State to State activity budget document was not published on time but now the budget of the year is presented by the executive first day of every year.
“by law after expiration of the year ,the accountant general is to produce a draft financial statement in the first three months of the next year, I assure you Gombe state account of 2021 account has already been audited since may 30th even before the June 30th bench mark,” Kulani added.
He said there is also improvement on the procurement procedure where due process to include advertising, bidding are all followed.
Kulani said, “There are so many procures involved in procurement, you must widely advertise,call for tender, I tell you Gombe state is following all these processes.”
Also speaking, Executive Director Standard Compliance Gombe State Internal Revenue Service Nuhu Bulus said the Internally Generated Revenue IGR has increased from 2020 to date.
According to Bulus, “There is actually been a tremendous success story as far as reforms processes are concerned and one of the driver of the successes is the state to state activity intervention in Gombe state.
“We achieved a lot in terms of the IGR expansion strategy we had series of sessions that led to the production of IGR Expansion document which has been validated and now a document.”
He said meeting the SFTAS requirement gave the state opportunity to secure grants worth millions of dollars.
” The state has benefited in meeting the SFTAS requirement that gave the opportunity for the state to win grants.
The two officers however called for training and retraining of key officers for greater improvements,” he said.
On his part, Director Planning Research and Statistics of the Gombe State Universal Basic Education Board Mr Jonathan John Kul said some staff of the board have been trained on budgeting, social inclusion conflict mitigation and that led to the successful implementation of some SUBEB activities.
Earlier at the Pause and reflect session the Gombe State Team Lead state to state activity Mohammed Bello Abubakar said series of capacity building and technical support have been conducted by state activity and this had helped Gombe state ranked seventh in it fiscal performance in 2020 according to BudgIT report 2020.
We have been in Gombe since 2020 and the aim is to have a transparent, accountable and effective governance in Primary health, Basic education Water and Sanitation WASH sectors.
Also, The State-to-State Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist Gombe State, Ivy Dooga said the session is to collect learning loops about the design and implementation of project actively and to create stakeholder feedback on all the identified loops.
According to Dooga, the Pause and Reflect session is to also bring relevant stakeholders to share their observations, reflections and discuss them together to generate new insights.
At the end of the Pause and reflect session, participants shared their success stories,challenges and the way forward.
Participants included sub grantees and officials of the line MDAs.
