NAN-HE-15
CSO meets 17,000 people over 2018 Bauchi State’s budget proposals
Budget
By Amina Ahmed
Bauchi, Sept. 15, 2017 (NAN) The Bauchi State Network for Civil Society Organizations (BASNEC) has met with over 17,000 people in eight local government areas in the state to discus and map out community problems to be addressed in the 2018 budget proposals.
The Chairman of BASNEC, Mr Garba Jinjiri, disclosed this on Friday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Bauchi.
He said that budget proposals needed to capture the pressing and realistic needs of the people at the grassroots, adding that past budgets tended not to address much of community problems.
He said the pilot exercise was conducted in Bauchi, Azare, Gamawa, Misau, Ningi, Kirfi, Dass and Jama’are local government areas.
“Most budget proposals are made without consulting the people that will benefit from it.
“For instance, the need of a community is water but schools will be constructed.
“Therefore, BASNEC took it upon itself to meet with community members through their Ward Development Committees, to bring out their problems.
“We met with over 17,000 people at various levels from community to local government and during the state level meeting, we called some stakeholders on budget preparations and handed over the identified issues to them.
“The outcome of this pilot exercise was wonderful but we just conducted the priority setting meetings in areas of education and health since its a pilot exercise.”
Jinjiri said that such settings would enable government to have exact ideas of the needs of the people across the state.(NAN)
AE/IA
Edited by Idris Abdulrahman