Nkechinyere Ewa-Okpara
USAID State2State has emphasized the importance of citizens participation in budget process and call for its implementation in Ebonyi State.
Sam Onyia USAID State2State team lead Ebonyi Field Office while speaking during
Local Government Areas 2025 budget consultation in Ohaozara Local Government Area of Ebonyi State yesterday noted that Citizens’ participation promotes transparency, build confidence and relationships between the government and the citizens.
The consultation meeting was organised by USAID Nigeria State2State Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness (State2State Activity).
Represented by Victoria Eze, the State2State local government manager Onyia pointed that citizens’ input will bring more development to the grassroots.
Victoria noted that the local government areas also need to understand mainstreaming conflict and Do No Harm policy in budget consultation and collation of the CCD project so that no one is left behind.
“We are here to review what we did in September 2024 to see if all those things that citizens articulated in September were captured in the 2025 budget proposal it won’t take long for the bilateral discussion in the Ministry of Local Government to start so we are here to review, prepare ourselves before going for the bilateral discussion we are also here to ensure that thcitizen’sns voices, needs were captured and if they were not captured, is there advice we are going to give to the chairman.
“When citizens participate in the local government budget process, it helps the Government to get inputs or voices of the citizens, and having gotten the voices of the citizens, they use it to make decisions on their laws, policies and projects.
Beyond that, the participation of citizens in the budget process also enhances trust between the government and the citizens, so I want to encourage us here not to take this meeting for granted.
As I said earlier on, we are not here to audit anybody. We are here to ensure that the citizen’s needs are captured in the 2025 budget. Remember that the governor’s mantra is the people’s charter of needs, and the people’s charter of needs should emanate from the locals, the grassroots. She said
Ajah Consider Chairman Ohaozara Local Government represented by Obasi Chidi, in his remarks, pointed out that the budget consultation will help the council to know the different needs of the people in their different wards and how to tackle them.
HRH Eze Godwin Okoro, Ibom Eze 11 of Enu- Uburu Ohaozara and other traditional rulers who attended the consultation meeting charged the chairman of Ohaozara to carry them along from the early stage of budget processing so that the people’s need could be captured and create more development in the rural areas.