Rivers State Government has ended a one day pre-budget workshop for the 2019 budget estimate with a call on stakeholders to make their input for an accelerated passage.
Speaking at the event in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, the Commissioner for budget & economic planning, Hon. Isaac Kamalu explained that the budget will be a consolidation of the achievement of previous year’s having embarked on people-orientated projects since they came on board in 2015.
He said that the amount gotten from the budget estimate would be withdrawn from the medium term expenditure, adding that governor Nyesom Wike was committed to the development of all the sectors of the economy.
The commissioner maintained that the involvement of stakeholders including the market women, community base groups, civil society organisations and the students to be part of the budgeting process was a well thought-out idea, and promised that their contributions would be considered while making the final presentation of the budget.
He also said that the Governor Wike led administration introduced the system of gathering all the stakeholders to be part of the process which he described as a citizen oriented budget, adding that Rivers State runs the most transparent budget in the Country.
On civil servants welfare, the commissioner said that Rivers State Government has always shown much more commitment on the welfare of the workers, saying that “the governor has publicly mentioned that Rivers state would honour any agreement reach at the tripartite committee, but what the governor and other of his colleagues are emphasising is that the present sharing formula of the federal allocation should be reviewed so that all the states can get appreciable increase from what they are currently receiving from the federation account”.
In his speech, the Rivers State commissioner for empowerment and employment generation, Dr. Weleonu Webobu described the pre-budget workshop as a welcome development, saying that budget of a state needed inputs from stakeholders in all the sectors of the economy.
He maintained that his ministry was seriously planning on how to create jobs for its citizenry and called for productive economic and entrepreneurial society for the development of the state.
Earlier in her presentation, the Permanent Secretary, Rivers State ministry of budget and economic planning, Titilola Kuna Cline explained that Rivers State contributes 48 per cent of the crude oil currently exported in the country, adding that prior to the discovery of oil in commercial quantities at Oloibiri, in the present day Bayelsa state in 1958, Agriculture was the main sustenance of Rivers People.
She expressed satisfaction that the state was doing well in its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), saying that the budget was made up of revenue and expenditure which she further breakdown to recurrent and capital expenditure.
