UNICEF, in collaboration with the Katsina State government, has engaged members of the state House of Assembly in a four-day sensitisation workshop on transitioning to programme-based Budgeting (PBB).

The workshop for social sectors committee chairs and their secretaries was organised in Kano, with the support of the UNICEF Kano Field office through the state Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning.

Katsina State is presently practising the incremental budgeting system.

In a presentation, one of the resource persons, Olumide Ayodele, said the workshop was to deepen the legislature’s knowledge on public financial management (PFM).

He said PFM dealt with all aspects of resource generation, allocation, and expenditure management in government, geared towards the efficient delivery of public goods and services.

According to him, it is also aimed to explain the roles of the legislature in ensuring accountability, transparency, effectiveness, and efficiency in the use of public resources.

Chinedu Eze, another resource person, said programme-budgeting was the method that organised the budget around programmes that were linked to the government’s policy objectives.

“In addition, programme budgeting requires effective measures, which means the measurement of outputs and outcomes, and it focuses explicitly on budgetary choices among competing policies.

“The programme budgeting has had an impact where programmes have been ministry or, at most, sector-specific,” Mr Eze said.

Earlier, the State Commissioner of Budget and Economic Planning, Bello Kagara, said the workshop came at the right time when the state government was preparing the 2025 budget.

He said the workshop was important, especially for the legislature, who was in charge of overseeing the overall process of the budget implementation.

Mr Kagara explained that budgeting was a clear strategy, a political document, and also an instrument for the attainment of the socio-economic yearnings of the citizens.

“It’s also a clear window for the bridging of the gap between the rich and the poor; therefore it’s a window of hope for the common man,” he said. 

Speaking, the speaker of the assembly, Nasir Yahaya-Daura, commended the organisers for improving their knowledge in the process of migrating to the new budgeting system.

He assured the commitment of the lawmakers towards making proper use of the new system to ensure the well-being of many citizens of the state.

The speaker assured that the assembly was always concerned about the people’s interest and would continue to ensure that programmes were initiated and executed based on needs and priorities. 

(NAN)