From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna
The Partnership to Engage, Reform, and Learn (PERL) and members of civil society working in different sectors of the Budget have said citizen participation in budgeting is crucial for promoting good governance, transparency, and accountability in public spending.
Team Lead, PERL a UK-supported governance program, in Kaduna State, Mr. Abel Adejor remarked a one-day
Technical session citizens Group capacity on Budget analysis and Advocacy in preparation for the draft 2024 budget held in Kaduna yesterday.
Adejor harped on the need for sustained advocacy on citizen’s budgets to create a more participatory and inclusive budgeting process, by doing so, they can ensure that public funds are allocated in a manner that reflects the needs and aspirations of its citizens
The program was organized by Kaduna Local Government Accountability Mechanism and Coalition of Associations for Leadership, Peace, Empowerment and Development (CALPED) in collaboration with Budget Research and Development Policy Advocacy Center (BREDPAC), Institute of Budget and Policy, Africa and Ihifix with the support of PERL.
Speaking earlier Mr. Seth Luke said the objectives of the session are to better understand the role of citizens’ participation in budget processes with emphasis on budget analysis and advocacy as well as tracking implementation;
“Deepen civil society capacity to engage in evidence-based budget advocacy on sustaining the benchmark for key sectors (health and education) and increased allocations in orders;
“Facilitate review of the Kaduna Citizens’ Feedback app to report on its user-friendliness and provide recommendations to enable effective citizens to influence budget implementation.” He said
In his presentation Mr. Ishaku Yusuf Goje of CALPED defined a budget is an approximation of revenue and expenses over a specified future period and is usually compiled and re-evaluated on a periodic arrangement.
He stressed that Budgets can be made for a person, a family, a group of people, a business, a government, a country, a multinational organization, or just about anything else that makes use of money.
Goje also defined Budget advocacy as how civil society organizations and communities get involved in how government resources are allocated and spent, and how these allocations address the needs of different population groups such as key populations, women and girls, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable
Budget analysis according to him is the process of looking at actual income and expenditures and comparing them to the budget to see if it is on track, saying conducting a budget analysis gives a chance to correct overspending and update your forecasts.
Goje explained that the positive role of citizens’ participation in the budgetary process of effective service delivery in the public sectors of developing countries has come to the fore in recent times.
He opined this is in recognition of the fact that citizens who are the main stakeholders are partners in the development engineering of the state.
“Involvement of citizens groups in budget processes has increased citizen inputs in the process and it was as a result of the people’s inputs in budget formulation”
Goje Transparency in government should be the building block of any government, more so for a government that is bent on courting the public and making a qualitative difference in the lives of the people.
He observed that involving stakeholders, such as CSOs will demonstrate that citizens’ engagement in the budgetary process would demystify the process and make the government accountable to the people He therefore called on all stakeholders to be more involved in budget analysis and advocacy.
