Ministries, Departments and Agencies that fail to present their budget profile by Wednesday next week risk exclusion from the 2014 budget, Rivers State Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Mr. Gogo Levi Charles has said.
He gave the warning yesterday at the opening of the 2014 Budget Discussion Session at the ministry’s Conference Hall in Port Harcourt.
Mr. Charles said it was unfortunate that some MDAs have not given the budget the desired attention by submitting their budget profile, noting that MDAs were notified to turn in their profiles since July, but majority have failed to do so.
The office of the Auditor- General for Local Government was the first MDA that appeared before the 2014 budget discussion committee yesterday.
In the words of the commissioner,” priority is that our 2014 budget must be all inclusive,’’ further noting that a bottom -up approach has been adopted to ensure that inputs are generated from all sectors of the state in the formulation of the budget.
“ The state government is serious about budget implementation and we must be seen to be careful in putting together all that we need in 2014 budget ‘’, he maintained.
Apart from presenting their budget profiles, the commissioner insisted that officials of the affected MDAs needed to be physically present to defened such presentations on the days alloted them.
He emphasised that all proposals would have uniform baseline across board, saying that,” Nobody will draw figures from the sky, prices are of common knowledge and we will ensure that there is a price range in all the items’’.
He went on to say that,” on the 10th of October, this budget discussion exercise will end for the 2014 budget, and we expect that no MDA would hold us accountable should they be excluded from the 2014 budget for reason that they were either not available to discuss their budget on the date allocated to them or that they did not submit their profiles within the time expected of them’’.
The commissioner, therefore, enjoined MDAs to reflect the people’s expectations in their profiles to enable their views count in the final budget.
The committee, however, observed a one minute silence in honour of the Director of Finance and Accounts of the ministry, who was shot by unknown gunmen on his way to church, recently