The Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly, Rt Hon Chinedum Enyinnaya Orji, has warned all Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the State against any expenditure of government funds without appropriation.
The Speaker advised them to attend the committee sittings to defend their various budgets.
Orji handed down the warning while declaring open the 2020 Budget Defence for the Ministries, Departments and Agencies in Abia State, held at the Assembly complex in Umuahia, the state capital on Tuesday.
He said, “All Ministries, Departments and Agencies must come to the House of Assembly to defend their respective budgets. That is the requirement of the law.
“It is important that the Accountant General and his team ensure that all monies are appropriated. For you to avoid prosecution, you must ensure that whatever you do is in accordance with the Law”.
The Speaker further warned that any MDA that fails to appear before the Appropriation Committee will be appropriated with Zero Fund.
“In these days of Freedom of Information, we must be careful in the expenditure of government money”, he emphasised.
Earlier in his address, Chairman of the Abia State House of Assembly Committee on Appropriation, Hon. Kennedy Njoku assured that the present leadership of the seventh Abia Assembly that his committee would break the record this time to ensure that the 2020 Appropriation Bill is passed into Law before the 30th of December, 2019.
“We want to break the record and ensure that the 2020 Appropriation Bill is passed into Law before the 30th of December, 2019. We want to work and ensure that before 2020, the Budget would have been passed into Law”.
