By kelechi ugo
A Non-Governmental Organization Citizens Centre for Integrated Development and Social Rights (CCIDESOR) has enumerated the crucial reasons why citizens should monitor yearly budget of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, at their two day economic intracy and
The organization regretted that over 10 trillion naira allocated to South East states of the country via federal budget in fourteen years of democracy under 4th republic of Nigeria has been spent without meaningful development in the region.
The CCIDESOR Executive Director Mr Emeka Ononamadu noted that no monitoring of the budget by citizens has created a room for breach of citizens fundamental human rights, poor development, diverting public into private purse by elected public office holders, incessant abandonment of projects, non-accountability among other social ills in Nigeria.
He argued that the problem of South East is not money, but the judicious way of spending the money adding that the disgruntled politicians have introduced so many dimension of abuse of fund meant for public consumption.
The Executive Director reiterated that no hard copy of the budget available for the citizens to critically study and gain comprehensive nature of the projects allocated to their various areas via the budget.
Also speaking, one of the guest presenters, Dr Temple C Nwosu who presented a paper little “How citizens can collaborate with town union and community base organizations to promote budget transparency and participation in a democracy” maintained that citizens should liase with town union executives and leaders of community based organizations to have close contact with their elected representatives and strive for inclusive budgetary system.
Dr Nwosu disclosed that town union executive members and members of community based organizations should be trained in economic literacy to earn than capacities for impacting to the budgeting process hence freedom of information Act (FOA) has become a focal point for accessing information from the public office holders.
Another, presenter, the senior legislative aide to the senate president NGOs and CSOS, Mr Moses Obikpe who spoke on “Deepening democracy and facilitating sustainable development through citizens budget partnership with elected legislator” stated that citizens should get ready to participate in budget preparation at the constituency level by highlighting some crucial projects that would be captured in the budget via their elected legislators.
Mr Obikpe said that citizen should work in synergy with NGOs and CSOS to actualize hitch free budget monitoring and should sign scorecard with their elected public office holders.
