The Commissioner of Information, Rivers State, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari has commended the Civil Society Organizations in Rivers State for budget monitoring.
The Commissioner made the commendation at the launching of a report by the coalition of Civil society organizations known as Niger Delta Citizens and Budget Platform, based in Port Harcourt, at Algate Congress, Abacha Road, last week.
Mrs. Semenitari has asked the organization to seek for a way of partnering with the state in the area of budget monitoring, performance and evaluation, She said the Rivers State government was able to display their budget on Website for easy access.
The information commissioner used the occasion to announce that the federal government was yet to pay for the returned oil wells, hence, there wedre still shortfall from the oil revenue, but agreed with the platform that the government most times, could not meet up their budget projection due to some issues relating to tax payments in the state.
She said some civil society organizations have used their position to assist some motorists not to pay taxes but to grant them cover which is illegal.
On the issue of the less allocation to the education and health sector, the commissioner said critical infrastructure has been provided by building the modern schools, therefore the allocation will not be the same in the previous years.
Justifying the continues increase in security votes, she said the governor, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi has built new police college in Nonwa in Tai local government, paid counterpart funding for the purchase of police Helicopter, among others.
Mrs. Semenitari disclosed that 75 primary schools are now furnished and the issue of 100 billion loans was later abandoned.
Earlier, the commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Rivers state who was represented by the Chief Budget Analysis Committee chairman, Mr. Igochukwu Wali, made some clarifications on the Budget allocated to MDA’s, main capital projects and programme development, but lamented that most times projects were replicated.
Presently, the report, Mr. Ken Henshaw, a programme staff of Social Action, told stakeholders how in the past three years the civil society organizations have been monitoring the Rivers State budget to bring sanity, accountability and transparency into governance.
Ken Henshaw lamented how budget has become the avenue to loot the state resources while the citizens are suffering. He said while the security votes of the governor continue to increase, other sectors are begging for more funds, like education, Health and Housing.
It could be recalled that most of the items found in the state budget were not in existence when the monitoring team visited the University of Science and Technology, the University of Education, the College of Arts and Science, the School of Midwifery, among other, as those items proposed in the budget were not on ground.
The issue of Housing is another area where some citizens during an interactive section blamed the Rivers State government for allocating huge sums of money to housing, yet nothing to show.
Responding, Mr. Dauda Garuba of the Revenue Watch Institute thanked the government for responding to the invitation because in the past, the governor has dismissed them as faceless citizens, but that the day’s presentation of the report, “counting the votes,” has shown that the platform is really working to put government on the right tract.
The platform is funded by the Revenue Watch Institute, London. ###
Pius Dukor
