The Gombe field office of United States Agency for International Development, Nigeria, State Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness Activity on Tuesday held its quarterly Public Financial Management roundtable workshop.
The one-day workshop held at Emerald Hotel, Government Reserved Area, Gombe State.
PERISCOPE NIGERIA reports that the event was organised in collaboration with the Gombe State Fiscal Responsibility Commission.
State2State officially involved the newly constituted board of the FRC in the roundtable ownership and coordination arrangements following their official resumption on August 19, 2024.
The Gombe State2State Office Public Financial Management Specialist, Mr Oluwatosin Oke, gave a rundown of the objectives of the roundtable, “To discuss PFM reforms in the state and the sustainability requirements with the newly constituted FRC Board.
“To review the state’s 2025 budget process alignment with the state budget manual and recommend necessary amendments.
“To discuss the plans of Ministries Departments, and Agencies to effectively align their 2025 budget with the 2025-2027 Medium Term Sector Strategy.
“To review progress in implementing the action plan developed to improve the Gombe PFM system during the 2023 midline PFM assessment,” the PFM Specialist added.
In an address of welcome, the Gombe State Team lead of State2State, Muhammad Abubakar, hailed the newly appointed members of the FRC board and urged them to support the implementation of reforms started by the state government with support from State2State.
He expressed satisfaction with the governor’s reform move of appointing the Board and Chairman of FRC, which is a strong commitment to driving reforms that will lead to the economic development of Gombe State.
He added that Gombe state has done so well in implementing key reforms with actions like signing onto the Open Governance partnership (OGP), with a key outstanding task of approving the State Action Plan (SAP) of the OGP which is awaiting the Governor’s endorsement.
“Once the SAP of the OGP is signed by the governor, implementation of more support activities will follow as State2State has prepared its work plan for year 5,” he added.
In a good will message, the new Chairman of the Gombe Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Alhaji Umar Babagoro-Bello, commended State2State for supporting Gombe State Government with reform initiatives since 2020 when he was in active service.
Babagoro-Bello, who was a retired Accountant General of the state, assured that the Board will do everything possible within its powers to ensure that Gombe State continue to score high in Good Governance.
Our correspondent reports that the activity adopted a participatory meeting approach involved presentation of State2State’s PFM interventions in Gombe State, key results, and sustainability requirements, Revision of the state’s 2025 budget process in line with the state budget manual developed in 2023.
Discussions on the plans of priority sectors to effectively align their 2025 budget with the 2025-2027 MTSS, Presentation and discussion on the updates and plan of respective stakeholders on the action plan from the 2023 PFM Midline Assessment, and the next steps agreed in previous editions and Identification of action plan and next steps to improve PFM in the state.
