Governor Ugwuanyi of Enugu State

By Richard Elesho

As part of efforts to guarantee good governance, a group, South Saharan Social Development Organisation (SSSDO), has appealed to South-East state governments to encourage greater participation of citizens and stakeholders in their budget process and implementation.

The appeal was made in a communiqué on Tuesday in Enugu by Mrs Bethel Obetta, SSSDO Team Leader for Good Governance, at the end of a training programme for youths in the region on good governance.

The theme of the training was: “Community Needs Assessment: Budget Assessment and Monitoring.’’

According to the group, many states in the South-East do not sufficiently make their budgets public to facilitate access or monitoring of projects and programmes in it by youths in the region.

The statement said that projects were usually carried out by government without recourse to the citizens’ needs and demands.

“The citizens at the grassroots lack the capacity to articulate community citizens’ charter of demand and engage the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) with it for a more citizens’ friendly budget.

“Youths do not know who to report to when they see shabbily done or uncompleted projects in their communities.

“Citizens welfare are neglected as citizens are either paid salaries in percentages according to the governors’ desire like in Ebonyi state or owed for months as is the case in Imo and Abia states.

“Autocracy is holding sway in Ebonyi and Imo states where citizens and government workers are witch hunted for exercising their voice against the activities of government which do not make for good governance.

“The youth are afraid of what will happen to them when they boldly speak against government policies and actions that are not in the interest of the citizens,’’ it said.

Only Enugu State, the group said, had conducted Visit Every Community (VEC) and had adopted the community needs to inform the medium-term sector strategy and the state’s budget.

The communiqué was signed by the 35 youth participants at the training.