A university don in the country has emphasised the need for communities in the country to show interest in the yearly budget process in order to avoid the siting of unnecessary development projects in their localities.
Speaking at a workshop on budget monitoring organised by the Women Aid Collectives, WACOL, in conjunction with Christian Aid , Voice to the People and UK Aid, in Umuahia, Dr. Uzochukwu Amakom, explained that communities should interact with their representatives and follow the budget process to know the relevance of projects to be sited in their areas.
Amakom, who is a lecturer in the Institute of Development Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN, said “Communities should show interest and follow the budget process. They must monitor the budget to know the projects for their areas, the contractor handling the project, amount budgeted, duration, specification and size of the project.
“This will help to ensure that only projects which will have a positive impact on their lives will be sited. In many areas, you have centres for skill acquisition abandoned or shoddy work done. For instance, in the 2017 federal budget for Abia State; there is a provision for public convenience allocated to Umunneochi area.
“This may not be the most critical need of the people of the area if they had followed the budget process. They may have preferred projects in health, road, agriculture and education sectors instead of mobile toilets to be sited in a rural area. There is a need to pursue priority projects to communities. The major issue is; is the project relevant to the community?
“Sometimes, you may visit a site for a project in the national budget, but there will be nothing on ground to show for funds released. But when your representative or the contractor knows that the community is in interested in the project, he will be serious to ensure quality work and early completion.
“Communities need to ask question why a contractor may be doing a two-kilometre work in a 20- kilometre road project awarded to his company. Even if the funds released are not adequate, he will inform the community on why work may be delayed.”
He enumerated factors such as ignorance, illiteracy and apathy as the reason communities have failed to follow the budget process in reference to conception and execution of projects budgeted for the areas and called for a change to check shoddy work and abandonment of projects.
Earlier, Programme Manager, WACOL, Anulika Ezennia, had outlined the objective of the workshop to include sensitizing the citizenry about budget and project monitoring to promote good governance.
