Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima has directed Heads of Departments and Agencies under the supervision of the State House to follow existing rules when preparing their organisations’ budgets.
This was part of the preparations for the release of the call circular for the start of the 2025 budget procedure, as the State House Management and the heads of government agencies under its supervision conducted a one-day retreat in Abuja over the weekend.
Declaring the retreat open, Shettima, represented by Deputy Chief of Staff Senator Ibrahim Hadeija, asked the Heads of Agencies to follow the existing regulations that govern their organisations.
He emphasised the need of sticking to the State House management’s established objectives, notably in institutionalising e-governance to enhance operations.
The Vice President also thanked the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), for attending the retreat and giving an insightful presentation titled “Delineation of roles and functions between management, the agency, and its supervising entity: A prerequisite for good relationship and effective Mandate delivery.”
According to Shettima, “This is a critical retreat to remind senior civil servants, new appointees, and heads of agencies about Civil Service regulations.”
“These regulations can be quite tedious, and the Permanent Secretary, State House, was right when he said some of these issues will come back to his table.”When I was a member of the Senate Public Accounts Committee, I remember seeing certain faces here who we summoned to answer questions about the Auditor-General’s report.
“This underscores the importance of reminding ourselves of the procedural issues that have to complied with in governance and administration” .
In his summary of the retreat, State House Permanent Secretary Olufunsho Adebiyi said that it was intended to enhance teamwork and synergy in the activities of the State and Agencies under its oversight.
He stated, “In order for us to drive President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, we must work together within the State House and all of the agencies under its control.”
“The retreat is designed to clarify who is responsible for what and how we can help each other reach our goals. Some of us are meeting for the first time.
“It is necessary to define our roles and limits and avoid breaking financial, procurement, administrative thresholds” .
The Permanent Secretary also stated that, after the President’s recent ratification of the new minimum salary, the government will no longer tolerate mass recruitments into agencies without consent or waiver, as well as selective promotions.
“We now have new public service regulations that stipulate when to promote, who is due for promotion, manner of promotion, procedure and conduct of promotion examinations and rigorous adherence to public service rules,” he stated.”
According to him, the Retreat, the first of its type under this administration, also discussed the need for stringent implementation of government regulations and punishments for noncompliant agencies.
“The Retreat apprised CEOs of government agencies on types of appointments into the public service, criteria and qualifications for these appointments, procedures for procurement process, budget preparation, and the monitoring and evaluation of government policies ,” wrote Adebiyi.
The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP), Nigeria Agriculture and Land Development Agency (NALDA), Office of the Chief Economic Adviser to the President (OCEAP), and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are the agencies whose establishing Acts place them under the supervision of the State House.
Others include the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), Nigerian Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), National Centre for the Coordination of Early Warning and Response Mechanism, National Council on Climate Change (NATCCC), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), and the National