A budget and policy monitoring group says Rivers State is the only focal state in the Niger Delta whose 2016 budget is not anywhere available in the public domain. Social Action, in a press briefing Wednesday, said Akwa Ibom, Delta, Bayelsa and Cross River had all put their 2016 budgets in public view.
The acting executive director, who authored the budget survey report, Ken Henshaw, told newsmen at their office in D-Line area of Port Harcourt that transparency level in all focal states was poor.
On Rivers State under Nyesom Wike, Social Action said it did everything under the sun to get the new governor’s first budget to no avail. “Permit us to state that all the other states we have engaged in the Niger Delta have made public their budget documents. Three of those have made electronic copies available online.”
Flanked by other activists and NGO leaders, Henshaw said: “We are deeply concerned that the Rivers State government is yet to publicly make available copies of the 2016 budget of the state. At various times, our organization has made requests to the relevant government agencies for electronic or hard copies of the document, all to no avail.
“On more than one occasion, the response has been that the document is not yet ready. If this is the case, one then wonders what it was that the State House of Assembly passed into Law as the 2016 Appropriation.”
He said his group was worried that Rivers state seemed to have slid further into fiscal fiat as the non-availability of budgets for public scrutiny and as a guide for public expenditure defeats every pretext to transparency, accountability or prudence.
“We hold strongly that no claim to transparency and accountability can be considered valid in a system where the basic document to achieve it, is not available to the public. Rivers state cannot claim that it is working for the people when 11 months into the year, the people have no idea what their money is being spent on.”
The failure of the government to make the 2016 budget document available to the public, he said, has made it impossible for citizens of Rivers State and other taxpayers to monitor the extent of public expenditure delivery and its attendant outcomes.
“At the moment, citizens are not aware which 2016 projects are located in their communities or which ones directly benefit them. For a government that promises accountability and transparency, this is a far cry from global best practices; Social Action condemns it in totality.”
Social Action said it was abnormal for Rivers State not to have the 2016 budget in the public realm 11 months into the fiscal year. “We call on the Ministry of Budget and every other responsible agency of the Rivers state government to make the 2016 budget available by uploading it on the Rivers state government website and subsequently produce printed copies as soon as possible.
“It will be a sad comment on the ‘performance’ of the current administration if in a few weeks it presents the 2017 budget proposal to the state House of Assembly for consideration without having the state 2016 budget in the public realm.”
Asked if his call would be mistaken for opposition to the Wike administration, Henshaw said he already feared it would so be taken, but said he made sure every single detail was covered in the quest for budgets of all the five focal states. He opened the state’s website to show journalists that the Rivers State budget was simply not there, and how his letters and visits failed to produce hard copy.
When contacted, Simeon Nwakauda, the media assistant to Gov Wike, said the document was in the public domain and was being steadily implemented. When pressed further, he referred the public to the Rivers State House of Assembly.
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