Amby Uneze
6 July 2009
Owerri — Responsibility Commission is set to create budget discipline in the country, the Commissioner representing the South East zone who is also in charge of the Legal, Investigation and Enforcement Directorate of the Commission, Chief Chris Okewulonu, has said.
According to him, the Fiscal Responsibility Law was a unique document since it was the first time in the history of Nigeria that Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 attempted to criminalise acts of slothfulness in the course of budget preparation, implementation, monitoring and reporting.
Disclosing this fact yesterday at a two-day workshop on the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 organised by the Centre for Social Justice with the support of Ford Foundation in Owerri, Imo State, Okewulonu noted that Nigerians now have the legal right to question how their money is being utilised.
He admitted that in the past, existing laws were to address issues of leakages in revenue collection and reporting as well as spending inefficiencies, but added that the uniqueness of FRA was in providing a legal framework for focusing those hitherto existing laws and guidelines.
He disclosed that by the law, every citizen had been empowered to directly intervene through the courts to enforce aspects of fiscal planning, budget preparation, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, reporting, transparency and accountability because the law establishes a locus standi. Introducing the workshop, Lead Director of Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Eze Onyekpere, said that the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 was an Act to provide for the prudent management of the nation's resources, ensure long term macro-economic stability of the national economy, secure greater accountability and transparency in fiscal operations within a medium term fiscal policy framework.
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