Lorine Emenike
Civil Society Organizations in South-South have called on indigenes of the region to be involved in the advocacy in the area of budget transparency and accountability for good governance.
Mr Prince Ekpere, the program officer of Social Action (a non-governmental organization) and the Leader on Open Budget Campaign in the region, said the campaign for budget transparency and accountability for good governance in the region is supported by USAID.
He said the campaign which started some time ago has recorded credible successes as well as some challenges.
According to him, the basis for the meeting is to create a platform where citizens and government stakeholders will be educated on what open budget represents.
Mr Ekpere noted that so far the campaign has recorded credible success stories in various States of the South-South, especially in Akwa Ibom state, where the state’s budget is made open and accessible online to citizens, adding that huge success has recorded in other states as well.
He said “A situation where the house of assembly is collaborating effectively with the civil society organization in Akwa Ibom state to make the state’s budget available and accessible by their citizens is commendable.
“Also, there is a push to see how the house of assembly could pass the public procurement bill. We hope that at the end of this project, the bill will get to the floor of the house for deliberations.
“The fiscal responsibility bill was also passed. Fiscal responsibility bill is the bill that empowers state actors and gives them responsibilities on how to manage fiscal and public resources; because those in government, are not there for themselves.
“They are there for the people, the people who have empowered them and brought them to that platform”.
He said that in two weeks time, the team will be starting a radio program in various local languages in Rivers State to educate the good people of the state for the benefit of those in the rural areas of the state that don’t understand English.
Mr Ekpere stated that the project” open budget cluster” is geared towards ensuring good governance in all of the states in the South-South, where governments which are the supply side of the chain and the citizens who are on the demand side of the chain gets to meet so that best practices are strictly followed and standards are ensured so that there will be value for money.
Also, one of the facilitators of the meeting, Mr. Enong Emmanuel Ekanem, the Leader of the Mentoring, Evaluation and Learning of Policy Alert ( a non-governmental organization) in Akwa Ibom state, said that the project “Open Budget Cluster” a program with the aim of making sure that state budgets are proactively open, available and accessible for citizens participation and institutions that have to do with budget issues must also be strong and highly institutionalized for citizens to be fully involved in budget processes.
Mr Ebong said that government should open up the space for citizens’ participation. He further advised government representatives, especially legislators to seldom organize town hall meetings with their people or dialogue with their people to so as to find what they really want.
He said, “the ” Open Budget Cluster ” has a tripod stand. The first is the availability and the accessibility of the budget, a situation where citizens can access the budget online even in the comfort of their homes.
“The second is the citizen’s participation in the budget. A situation where citizens can have input in the budget processes before the budget is presented to the public. And the third is the oversight institutions. That is those institutions that are mandated to provide, produce or make budgets available, like the ministry of finance, the ministry of budget, economic planning etc and they should also engage the citizens.
Leftis Godspower Okombo, secretary general, Edo Civil Society Organization and also Young African Pioneers, Edo State, said that citizens should be aware that the budget is not just there for political leaders to sit on but that the budget carries issues that border on communities and it is the responsibilities of citizens to take it upon themselves to see that what the budget is saying is being done.
