Edo State Govt moves to have citizens’ inputs in 2022 budget

As part of efforts to have citizens’ inputs in the 2022 budget of Edo State, the government has engaged civil society organizations (CSOs) and other stakeholders in budget preparation.

“The inputs and comments made by participants would enable the state government to prepare a better 2022 budget for the citizens,” said Otse Momoh-Omorogbe, commissioner for budget and economic planning, who spoke at a stakeholders’ consultative forum in Benin City.

Momoh-Omorogbe said the forum, themed “medium-term expenditure framework for multi-year 2022 to 2024 aimed towards the preparation of the year 2022 budget” would enable the ministry to know what to include and remove in the budget in order to have the people’s budget.

According to her, “Every year during the budget preparatory stage, we engage citizens and other stakeholders in order to have their inputs and comments.

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“This will afford us the opportunity to explain to them while we are proposing the budget, where we intend to get the money and how we are going to finance it and spend the expected revenue”.

Bright Tony, a member of the civil society organisation, on his part, described the engagement as progress in budget preparation.

Tony noted that “Before now, citizens were not called on in budget preparation. We have made some remarks and when the budget is actually presented we would now see if those remarks were actually reflected.”

Vivian Evbotokhai, a representative of the Lift Above Poverty Organization (LAPO), in her remarks, called on the government not to prepare a bogus budget that cannot be implemented.