By Bashir Hassan Abubakar
A three day Bauchi State quarterly budget performance hearing between members of the Bauchi State House of Assembly (BAHA) and the Bauchi State Health, Education and WASH MDAs has commenced.
The engagement was organised by the USAID funded State Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness (USAID State2State), in collaboration with the Bauchi State House of Assembly (BAHA) and is taking place at Tahir Guest Hotel Kano between 26th – 28th August,2024.
In his opening remarks, the speaker of Bauchi State House of Assembly (BAHA) Rt. Hon. Abubakar Y. Sulaiman thanked USAID State2State for the continued support in entrenching good governance in the key priority sectors of Health, Education and WASH in Bauchi State.
Represented by the Deputy Speaker Rt.Hon. Jamilu Umaru Dahiru, the speaker tasked the house members to pay attention to the presentations on the budget performance, with a view to giving meaningful inputs for enhanced budget performance in Bauchi State.
The speaker also expressed the hope of the house of seeing a rich and implementable recommendations at the end of the exercise.
Earlier in a welcome remarks, State2State Citizens Engagement and Capacity Building (CECB) Specialist Habila Salem thanked BAHA leadership and the Honourable Members for honouring the invitation to be part of budget performance review engagement.
Salem said that the purpose of the budget performance activity was to strengthen the oversight function of the State House of Assembly on state annual budget process with regards to State2State’s priority sectors of Health, Education and WASH.
The CECB specialist specifically mentioned that the engagement is intended to assess the 2024 quarter one and quarter two state budget implementation progress related to primary health care, basic education, and WASH.
Salem said that it is hope that the engagement would also enhance participants’ knowledge and understanding of the role of the State House of Assembly in the state budget process, and also improve the state fiscal accountability and transparency mechanisms.
According to the CECB specialist, the activity would further strengthen the capacity of the State House of Assembly to manage budget performance review, track and analyse budget implementation results.
Salem said that, other purposes of the meeting was to identify, discuss, and make recommendations for improving state budget implementation, and also Identify next steps and develop an action plan on recommendations made for addressing identified issues and challenges.
In Day One of the engagement, the Bauchi State Commissioner of Budget, Economic Planing and Multilateral Coordination, Alhaji Aminu Hammayo made a Presentation titled , “Significance of State and LGA Budgets and it’s Responsiveness to Citizens’ Needs”.
Also, his counterpart from the Education Ministry, Dr. Jamila Mohammed Dahiru kept the participants abreast on the States’ Education Projects.
Dr. Dahiru highlighted the implementation processes, challenges, gaps and recommendations, with special focus on basic education in Bauchi State.
The engagement will continue in the subsequent days with Health and WASH Sectors making their presentations on the level of implementation of the 2024 budget in their respective sectors.