Budget: Yero tasks assembly on oversight function

Kaduna state Governor, Dr Mukhtar Ramalan Yero, has urged members of the House of Assembly to intensify their oversight functions to ensure efficient budget implementation that would positively affect the people.

Addressing a one-day retreat on “Implementation of the Approved 2014 Budget” organised for government functionaries yesterday in Kaduna, he said oversight functions were necessary legislative activity that “ensures probity and accountability in public sector expenditures and should not be perceived as witch-hunting.”

He said: “Oversight functions should be seen as partnership between the executive and legislative arms not as witch-hunting. Personally, I want regular oversights because there is no way you can have a good executive without a good legislature.
“The House should make oversight more consistent and not only when a budget is presented that you begin to go for inspection, you have to go at all times and if you find any problem please correct us.”
The governor charged ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to “immediately” commence implementation of the 2014 budget.

Speaker of the House of Assembly, Hon. Shehu Tahir, said, in his address, that the legislature would continue to carry out its oversight function as enshrined in the Constitution.
Tahir, who was represented by his deputy, said the major responsibility of the House was to identify and avoid inefficiency and wastage in government and ensure proper implementation of the budget.

“Parliamentary oversights seeks to promote and enhance government accountability and transparency by ensuring that the executive and those bodies to whom authority have been delegated, remain responsible and accountable in the performance of their functions,” he said.
The Commissioner for Economic Planning, Madami Garba Madami, in his welcome address, said the retreat would put all officials on their toes in working hard for full implementation of the budget.