Bauchi — Bauchi State Governor, Malam Isa Yuguda, has expressed his administration's commitment towards maintaining fiscal discipline in the management of scarce resources as a way of maintaining sustainable debt level in the state.

Yuguda who stated this in Bauchi while declaring open a North-East Zonal workshop on Public Debt Management organised by the Debt Management Office in Abuja pointed out that the debt management committee was set up in the state to supervise debt management activities and foster inter-agency relations in the state.

He explained that legal framework governing the operations of the state debt management office was being developed and would soon be passed into law to enhance the activities of the office in the state.

The Governor who was represented by the state Commissioner for Finance and Economic Development, Alhaji Aminu Hammayo, said the office is currently benefiting from technical and capacity building support of the Canadian international Development Agency (CIDA).

According to him, the agency had provided the office with the basic hardware equipment necessary for its initial operations, noting that it is also providing support in the area of human capacity building, adding that his government had also made significant progress in achieving broader fiscal responsibility reforms.

"We have enacted the fiscal responsibility and public procurement laws to enhance fiscal discipline, prudence and transparency in all aspects of public finance administration," he disclosed, saying that his state was among the first states in Nigeria to effectively establish a debt management office.