Federal Lawmakers Get 2023 Budget Proposal In September
The 2023 Executive Budget Proposal will be submitted to the federal lawmakers for consideration and approval in September 2022.
Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation(BOF).
Ben Akabueze disclosed at the commencement of training of MDAs On 2023 Budget preparation using GIFMIS-BPS in Abuja on Monday.
He said the move is in under the President’s directive, and in a bid to get the Appropriation Bill passed and signed into law by 31st December 2022.
Represented by the Director of Expenditure, BOF, Fabian Ogbu, the DG noted that
the federal government is determined 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 2020, 2021, and 2022 Budgets”.
To achieve this, he said, “we have already commenced a series of activities related to the process of preparing the 2023 Budget. These include a series of engagements and stakeholder consultations with key revenue-generating agencies, civil society organizations (CSOs), the Nigerian Governors Forum, the National Executive Council (NEC), the National Assembly as well as the Federal Executive Council (FEC)”.
“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 2023 budget on the GIFMIS-BPS with minimal errors”.
He told the participants that the government was counting on their commitment, cooperation, and support to achieve this goal, adding that like in previous years, the Budget Office Helpdesk will be functional throughout the budget preparation period to provide any further assistance MDAs may require.
“I hereby urge you to take full advantage of these two 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 2023 budget on the GIFMIS/PBS with minimal errors”, Akabueze stated.
According to him, the main goal of the training is to provide continuous learning to equip budget personnel with the requisite knowledge, skills, and tools they require to prepare and submit the 2023 Budget in a timely and efficient manner, pointing out that the budget is also intended to be in tandem with extant FGN policies and guidelines as articulated in the 2023 FGN Budget Call Circular and other relevant laws/regulations.
He however observed that the 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.
“We have accordingly issued the 2023 FGN Budget Call Circular ahead of this training program to ensure that all issues and questions that participants may have been adequately addressed during 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 added.
Akabueze recalled that the Budget Office activated the GIFMIS-BPS in 2017, and has since then used the platform for service-wide preparation of the budgets, adding that every MDA has since then prepared and submitted its budget online and in “near realtime” using the GIFMIS-BPS application.
“This has helped to address some of the challenges that were experienced during budget preparation in prior years. For the 2023 budget preparation, we intend to maintain the use of the GIFMIS-BPS. Furthermore, we plan to leverage on some of your feedback and lessons learned from previous budget preparation exercises to improve your experience this year”, he stated.
Over 4,000 government personnel involved in budget preparation from about 900 MDAs are participating in the training program which is expected to take place over two intense days, across, Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Gombe, Ibadan, and Uyo, MDAS in the Enugu zone will commence their training from Wednesday to Saturday.
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