Budget Monitoring Crucial to Anti- Graft War
The fight against corruption in public life would acquire greater traction if citizens show more interest in monitoring budget implementation.
This was the preponderance of views at a two-day workshop on Budget Tracking organized the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, through. Its Enlightenment and Re-orientation unit, E&R, in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State July 8, 2014.
In his keynote address, the Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde who spoke through Osita Nwajah, deputy director, Public Affairs, said the workshop became necessary because of the need to educate people on budget tracking and monitoring in the fight against economic and financial crimes. He said the workshop is part of the prevention mandate of the EFCC, aimed at ensuring citizen’s participation at all levels of budget processes for better service delivery.
Aisha Larai- Musa, Head Enlightenment and Re-orientation Unit, told the participants that the Commission was determined to improve the capacity for budget tracking especially at the grassroots level.
According to her, the commitment was what propelled it to develop a Manual on Budget Monitoring, Tracking and Training in conjunction with the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP.
The Ebonyi State Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Matters, Chief Celestine Nwali who was represented by the permanent secretary, Mr. P. C. Imoke commended the EFCC for the workshop. He opined that if budget monitoring is done properly, it will benefit every citizen of the State and the entire nation.
One of the resource persons, Bashir Bello in his lecture on “Budget Monitoring and Tracking” explained that section 14 of the 1999 constitution allows public participation in good governance.
He urged all the participants to take greater interest in budget monitoring, as doing so will enthrone good governance, accountability and development.
Dr. Oji Ogbureke, who delivered a lecture on Budget Analysis; Evaluation and Social Audit; took the group through hands-on exercises on how to analyze and evaluate budgets using required tools.
Participants at the workshop were drawn from community based organizations, Non-governmental organizations; Faith based organizations and staff of local governments in Ebonyi State.
The two-day workshop which lasted from the 7th to the 8th July 2014 was attended by over fifty CSOs, NGOs and Local government agencies in Ebonyi State.
