Katsina state governor, Aminu Masari has signed into law the 2020 appropriation bill with assurance of completion of all ongoing projects across the state.
Daily Trust reports that Masari had in November last year proposed the sum of N249bn for its 2020 fiscal year but was slashed down to N244bn.
Speaking shortly after signing of the budget, Masari promised to revamp the department of special duties and that of budget and planning through town hall meetings for people to understand the purpose of budget to allow participation.
“We will start this in the 3rd quarter of this year at senatorial level. We shall break into various constituencies to have more inputs. This allow locals to have inputs of what they want to be captured,”
“We will try to make the finances of government public to drive revenue generation,” he said.
Masari added that “the needs of people are simple, but because they are not involved, we make decision without consultation, this leads us to not finding it well. This open door policy will reduce a lot of pressure and enhance government accountability to the public”
“It will also reduce level of criminality we are seeing among the youths and people living in the forest. This will open governance,” he added
While appreciating the effort of the Assembly for the timely work on the budget, the governor said, “I believe we will create a new budget cycle by submitting on time to enable the House do the needful in the budget processes.
He then urged the members to intensify oversight functions, make corrections where necessary and give advice also where necessary for the benefit of all the people irrespective of differences.
Earlier, the speaker, Tasi’u Zango said the budget was pruned down because some expenses like N-power funds from Federal government are given directly to the beneficiaries.
