By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The 2022 Executive Budget Proposal will be submitted to the National Assembly for deliberations next month, Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation (BOF), Mr. Ben Akabueze disclosed.
Addressing participants at the commencement of a three-day training sessions organised for personnel of Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) in Abuja on Thursday, Akabueze said this is in pursuant to Mr President’s directive to get the 2022 Appropriation Bill passed and signed into law by 31st December 2021.
Over 4000 personnel drawn from about 900 MDAs are participating in the training under the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System – Budget Preparation Sub-System (GIFMIS/BPS) platform.
Addressing the participants at the commencement of the three-day training sessions in Abuja on Thursday, the Director General of the Budget Office, Mr Ben Akabueze said each MDA had since prepared and submitted its budgets online using the GIFMIS-BPS application.
According to him, the GIFMIS-BPS application which was activated by the BOF in 2017, “has helped address some of the challenges that were experienced during budget preparation in prior years”.
He said, “we have engaged teams of experts to handle different aspects of the training including some fundamental budget concepts as well as hands-on training using the GIFMIS-BPS for budget preparation. They will bring their wealth of experience in Public Finance Management, Budgeting, GIFMIS and Digital Technologies to bear on this programme.
“The desired outcome of this training is to enable participants to refresh their knowledge, fine-tune skills and have access to the tools required to prepare and submit the 2022 budget on the GIFMIS-BPS with minimal errors. The Executive Budget Proposal will be submitted to the National Assembly by September 2021 pursuant to Mr President’s directive to get the 2022 Appropriation Bill passed and signed into law by 31st December 2021”.
Soliciting the cooperation and support of the participants to achieve its goal, Akabueze said, “as with the last six years, the Budget Office Helpdesk will be functional throughout the budget preparation period to provide any further assistance that may be required.
“I hereby urge you to take full advantage of these three days to ask all the questions you may have and learn as much as you can so that by the time you are through with the training, you are well able to prepare and submit your 2022 budget on the GIFMIS/PBS with minimal errors”.
The Director General who noted that the “government’s budget is a moral document”, said “you can tell who and what a country values by examining its budget”.
“It is therefore my hope that your budget submissions are in full compliance of the relevant sections of the Budget Call Circular; reflecting your sectoral mandates, Ministerial Priority Areas as well as relevant contributions to the achievement of the Medium Term National Development Plan (MTNDP) 2021-2025”, he added.
He stated that in the past six years, BOF had conducted similar training sessions adding that this year’s training programme is taking place physically in Lagos (for MDAs in Lagos State) and Abuja (for MDAs in Abuja and neighbouring states).
He reiterated the present government’s determination to ensure consistent and timely preparation, submission and approval of annual budgets as part of its Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms, “just as we have done for the 2020 and 2021 Budgets”.
He said “to achieve this, we have already commenced a series of activities related to the process of preparing the 2022 Budget. These include a series of engagements and stakeholder consultations with key revenue generating agencies, civil society organisations (CSOs), the National Executive Council (NEC), the National Assembly as well as the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
“Another key activity on the 2022 Budget Calendar is the training of MDAs’ personnel who will be involved in budget preparation. The main goal of this training is to provide continuous learning to equip budget personnel with the requisite knowledge, skills and the tools they require to prepare and submit the 2022 Budget in a timely manner. The budget is also intended to be in tandem with extant FGN policies and guidelines as articulated in the 2022 FGN Budget Call Circular and other relevant laws/policies”.
He however that “MDAs do not study the Budget Call Circular in detail and as such make mistakes that should ordinarily be avoided if they had complied with the relevant sections of the Budget Circular. To this end, one of the modules at the training this year will address key items and sections to note in the 2022 FGN Budget Call Circular.
“We have also issued the 2022 FGN Budget Call Circular this year ahead of this training to ensure that all issues and questions that participants may have are adequately addressed during the course of the training sessions. For the avoidance of doubt, we have the BOF Helpdesk running at full capacity currently to take care of all queries and questions that Budget Officers may have in the course of the preparation of their respective budgets”, he disclosed.
