.
Kaduna State Government has called on the 23 Local Government Councils to strictly adhere to the budget preparation guidelines in coming up with their draft estimate proposal and to avoid presenting over ambitious estimate proposals.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government Affairs, Dr. Abubakar Abba Umar gave the call during his opening remarks at a workshop for first and second quarter 2021 budget performance tracking and 2022 budget harmonization for staff finance and budget of the 23 Local Government Councils of the State, which held in Kano.
The Permanent Secretary reminder the participants that the Local Government Councils had defended their proposed 2022 estimates at the Ministry before the Local Government Estimate Committee on the 21st and 22nd of September this year with key observations raised and corrections made.
Dr Umar requested them to treat personnel cost as first line charge and balance from the budget size should be allocated in the ratio of 40% to recurrent expenditure and 60% to capital expenditure estimate while the Ministry will provide close supervision to ensure compliance.
He commended all 23 Local Government Councils for their timely submission of half year 2021 budget performance as this will ease the tracking of the 2021 approved budget of the councils as well as the Foreign Common Wealth Office funded Program, Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn, FCDO-PERL, for their support over the years to enshrine good governance at the Local Government Level in Kaduna State.
The Permanent Secretary thanked the Planning and Budget Commission, PBC, for their continued guidance and assistance and Civil Society Organizations for enlightening citizens of their responsibilities as well as deliberate and constructive engagement with the Government for entrenchment of transparency and accountability in governance.
The objectives of the workshop are, to strengthen participants’ capacity on Local Government Development Plan to Budget and Community Development Charter Linkage, engage participants with the concept of Local Government Development Plan budget profiling, support participants with half year performance analysis of the 2021 Local Government budget, articulate lessons from performance in the 2018 Local Government Development Plan fiscal framework to align with the 2022 LGDP fiscal framework and harmonize lessons for integration into the 2022 to 2025 LGDP
The workshop which started on the 26th of September will run through to 3rd October, 2021.
Joshua James
CS Co-Chair, Open Budget, OGP
Executive Director
Jalad Media Concept/Open Kaduna OGP Radio
