In Edo State, Citizens Budget Preparation Is Non-negotiable – Governor

The government of Edo State has assured of the state’s readiness to prepare a citizen’s budget in the next fiscal year.

The Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, said this at the opening of the four-day ‘train the trainers’ capacity building on increasing citizen’s participation in the budget process at the John Odigie- Oyegun Training Academy in Benin City.

The training was organised by the Open Government Partnership under the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Programme for Results- a reform programme to strengthen fiscal sustainability and performance. A component of the SFTAS programme is the Disbursement Linked Indicator 2 (DLI 2) focused on “Increasing Openness and Citizens Engagement in the Budget Process”.

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) is the firm hired by the federal government through the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning under the SFTAS to develop, design and provide support for states in the development of a process guide for the state budget office that details the flow of budget development process and documents required for fiscal transparency.

Participants were drawn primarily from Edo State Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning and several other budget departments in the state’s ministries, departments and agencies.

“For us in Edo, preparing a citizens’ budget is not negotiable. At least for me as governor, it is non-negotiable. That is why I want more of our DFAs to be here.”

“At the political level, we are doing what we can to change our politics and make political players realize that when they come out to serve, they are not there to serve themselves. Government is not a business where you make money, it’s where you come and serve,” Obaseki said.

He also called for a more transparent and accountable budget system in the country, noting that the current process is practically fraudulent.

According to him, “One of the major crises that we have in Nigeria today, apart from the very weak bureaucracy, is our budgeting process. Our budgeting, I am sorry to use a very harsh word, is almost fraudulent. Why do I say so?

“As an entity, whether federal, state, or local government, you know how much you can earn. Assuming you can only earn N100 in a year with all the evidence right before you, of course, you know it’s going to be N100.

“By the time you are preparing the budget and you are giving certain agencies envelopes to put this and that in the budget, you will end up putting up a budget of N200, and you are only going to receive N100. That is where the fraud begins.

“By the time you take that document to the House, the various representatives there have various promises they made to their constituents and the things they want to put in for themselves, and they add N50 to it.

“It will now be a budget of N250, and meanwhile, you have only N100. From that N100, maybe you have said that N100 will be for recurrent expenditures, to pay for the running of the government and N50 will be for capital. The recurrent expenditure is the first-line charge.”