BY EMEKA ANAETO

There are indications that fiscal policy performance in Gombe State is gaining efficiency traction as the state ranks amongst top seven across the country and top three amongst the 19 Northern states in key performance indicators.

In the 2021 State-of-the-states report published by BudgIT, a leading fiscal policy tracking organisation in Nigeria, indicated that the state recorded impressive improvements in its revenue generation capacity as well as expenditure efficiency under the leadership of Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya.

The report said, “despite the distortion of COVID-19 pandemic to local economies and government revenues worldwide, Gombe State’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) witnessed a +25.50% year-on-year increase from N6.80 billion in 2019 to N8.54 billion in 2020”.

BudgIT noted that Gombe State pruned its operating expenses by -22.8% from N42.88 billion in 2019 to N32.62 billion in 2020, with its overhead cost component experiencing the greatest cut of -47.16% from N9.89 billion in 2019 to N18.72 billion in 2020.

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This, the report said, has contributed immensely to the State’s improvement in fiscal performance in the 2021 Report.

Commenting on this development, Ismaila Uba Misilli, Director-General

( Press Affairs), Government House

Gombe, recalled that the Inuwa Yahaya administration came to power when Gombe State was overwhelmed with debt to the tune of about N119 billion comprising of bonds, external and internal debt which the state government services every month despite the meager allocation it gets from the federation account. 

BudgIT revealed that, “as at December 31st 2020, Gombe’s total debt stock was N98.86 billion, making it the 25th most indebted in the country; with N84.97 billion Naira domestic and $36.55m foreign debt.

“The state spent N13.92bn on servicing internal loans and N616.68 million on servicing external loans in the 2020 fiscal year”, the report affirmed.

Despite the economic downturn and the debt burden, BudgIT expressed confidence in the economic policies of the incumbent administration in Gombe State asserting that “Gombe state is moving in the right direction when it comes to blocking leakages of government revenues.

“In 2019, the state recorded improvement in three critical disbursement linked results under the SFTAS programme indicators (TSA, Biometric data capture for state payroll and BVN), the state can go even further by implementing a procurement law recommended by SFTAS to improve procurement practices”, the report maintained.

Agriculture value chain, mineral exploitation, industrialisation and Public-Private Partnership, which Governor Yahaya give more credence to have also been identified by BudgIT as sectors capable of sustaining Gombe State on the right tract of economic development. 

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