By Dipo Olowookere
In spite of the fact that no provision was made for the proposed civil service recruitment in the 2017 budget by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), there are plans to capture all recruitments in the state before the budget is signed into law and assented to by the Governor.
This disclosure was made by the Chairman, House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Mr Edward Gideon Baraya, during the ongoing budget defence at the Taraba House of Assembly on Saturday.
There was a concern raised by some of the Heads of parastatals under the Ministry of Information, which was that they intended to embark on fresh recruitments but provisions were not made in their various estimates to capture the proposed recruitment.
But Mr Baraya, who was present at the budget defence as a member of the Committee on Information, allayed the fears of those Heads of agencies by informing them that the State Planning Commission will liaise with these MDAs with a view to capturing every recruitment made in the state before the budget was passed into law and assented to.
In another vein, during the ongoing budget defence, the Ministries of Education, Science and Technology, Health, Information as well as Culture and Tourism, each took their time to defend their proposed estimates for the 2017 fiscal year.
In his presentation, Commissioner for Science and Technology, revealed that the Ministry had budgeted a sum N100 million for production of what he called ‘bio-organic fertilizer’ since farmers in Nigeria have been banned from exporting their produce because of the use of chemical fertilizers.
Also, the House Committee on Information, Culture and Tourism, led by Mr Sale Saad, beamed its searchlight on the Peace Concert held in Jalingo late last year.
The committee wanted to know if the concert was captured in last year’s budget.
But according to the Commissioner of Culture and Tourism, Mr Atesuma James Gani, the concert was not captured but that it was wholly the idea of an NGO, Prolific Entertainment, which was supported by the government of Taraba State.
However, the budget defence went successfully as all the MDAs that appeared, reconciled all the grey areas noted in their proposed estimates with the diligent guidance of the House committees.
Tara Voices.
Aduragbemi Omiyale