The Kaduna State Planning and Budget Commission (PBC) has started collating 2022 budget proposals of Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs).
The Director, Budget, in the commission, Mr Idris Suleiman, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna on Wednesday that an innovation in the proposals is citizens’ engagement.
He explained that the 2022 budget entailed a bottom-up approach in which citizens contributed inputs using the Community Development Charter (CDC) in the budgeting process.
According to him, the CDC is a written document containing development needs of communities listed in order of priority.
Government, he said, had decided to institutionalise the charter in budgeting process.
Suleiman also told NAN that the MDAs would begin the defence of their budget proposals from Sept. 6 to Sept. 10 after which a draft would be sent to the Executive Council for approval by October.
“After the draft is approved, we will organise a town hall meeting for citizens to engage in the process and make further inputs for ownership of the proposals after which it will be sent to the state’s House of Assembly.
“This is part of the state government’s commitment to open budget for citizens’ participation to ensure transparency and accountability in line with the Open Government Partnership (OGP),’’ he said.
Meanwhile, some civil society organisations (CSOs) already held a virtual strategy session on mainstreaming the CDC into the Kaduna State’s budget.
In a communique issued in Kaduna on Wednesday, the CSOs noted that the CDC was being used to list citizens’ demands in the local government annual budgets.
The communiqué noted that the 2022 budget formulation process presented an opportunity for stakeholders to engage it towards ensuring that the CDC was factored into the 2022 budget.
The organisations resolved to collate and disaggregate the prioritised needs of communities, based on sectors and forward to the PBC for consideration. (NAN)
