The Federal Government says it’s Citizens’ Portal, a website dedicated to improve people’s understanding of the country’s budget process has brought transparency to the entire process.
The Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Mr Ben Akabueze, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said that the Portal, which was launched in 2017, allows Nigerians to access budget information as well as engage government effectively on budget issues online.
“Considering that we are a people of about 200 million, we decided to leverage on technology to reach more citizens.
“Hence, we decided to host a Citizens’ Portal on our website where budget information is simplified. The portal is also a permanent dialogue mechanism to obtain feedback on issues from members of the public.
“We realised that the public presentation of the budget and the public consultative fora we normally hold cannot cater for a large proportion of the population.
“Hence, it was decided to have such a portal where every interested citizen can engage remotely with minimal constraint,’’ he said.
Akabueze said that since the launch in 2017, the website had recorded over a million visit.
He said that through the “Monitor Your Budget’’ Feature on the portal, citizens are able to make inputs on Budget implementation.
According to him, the Budget Office has received several information concerning the status of projects across the country.
He encouraged Nigerians to help with the development of the country by sending vital feedback, whether positive or negative on ongoing or stalled projects.
“Overall, it has been fair, considering this was only launched last year.
“However, we look forward to more Nigerians becoming interested in governance issues and an average annual visit in tens of millions.
“Last year, a little over one million hits were recorded, thus, it is safe to say that citizens are very interested in the contents of the Executive Budget,’’ he said.
Akabueze said that since the website launch, the level of engagement of members of the public in the budget process had greatly improved from what it used to be in the past.
“So yes, we do believe that the efforts to open up the budgeting process to greater citizens’ participation and leveraging technology for that purpose has played a part in this,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Henry Ushie, who works with a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) said that as a Nigerian citizen, he had tried accessing information from the website and found it insufficient.
“The government does not update the web portal as often as they should and this has defeated the purpose. For them to be proactive, they have to release these information on time.
“Also, information on budget implementation is rarely detailed enough,’’ he said.
Similarly, Mr Shola Badmus, of People’s Advocacy for Good Governance, a Civil Society Group, said that the website was not user friendly.
Badmus advised the Federal Government to reconfigure the website, if it wants to attract more traffic to the site.
He also urged the Federal Government to fix the “Monitor Your Budget’’ feature, which allows people to post pictures of projects they had observed across the country.
Badmus said that he had tried several times to upload his contribution and also view others, but it doesn’t seem to work.
Mr Yoma Odunuga, a Civil Activist, urged the Federal Government to sensitise the public more on the existence of the portal.
He said that even among civil society groups, who had made it their duty to monitor and challenge the government to do right thing, many of them do not know about the portal.
Odunuga, however, commended the Federal Government for the initiative, which he said provided information proactively to interested citizens on the entire budget process.
Nigeria signed up to the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in July 2016.
As part of the current National Action Plan of 2017 to 2019, the Open Budget commitment is the first of 14 commitments of the current OGP National Action plan.
The Open Budget commitment aims to ensure that citizens participate and make inputs into the budget process starting with the pre-budget statement, executive budget proposal and budget debate.
It also aims to guide Nigerians through public hearings in the Legislature, implementation, monitoring and reporting of the budget. (NAN)
