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By Sabastine Chinedu
ENUGU-INDEPENDENT Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, United Nation Development Programmes, UNDP and Africa Center for Rural Development and Environment, ACERDEN, have taken the campaign against corruption to the grassroots level in Enugu State.
The group disclosed that the grassroots stakeholders contribute immensely to budgeting in the country but have not been included during budget planning in the country.
This was made known during a 2-day capacity building training for grassroots on budget processes organised by Africa Center for Rural Development and Environment and supported by Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commissions, ICPC and United Development Programme, UNDP, held at Dannic Hotel, Enugu.
Addressing participants at the workshop, Professor Daniel Ugwu, Chief Executive Officer of ACERDEN assured that at the end of the training, participants would become more aware of their roles in their different communities in terms of budget preparation, presentation, and execution.
According to Prof. Ugwu, ” there is a link between budget, service delivery, and corruption. Budget padding is evil, be it corrective accounting or others”.
Prof. Ugwu highlighted common problems in the budget process to include poor planning, weak financial management system, corruption, inadequate funding, diversion of funds, weak budget oversight, and the role of the grassroots people in the budget processes.
Professor Ugwu noted that some government agencies and departments both at federal, states, and local council areas, do monitor projects but asked if it was participatory. “Do they involve stakeholders? Do they engage the CBOs and NGOs in the exercise?”
Prof. Ugwu, however, urged organisations that are community-based to be more interested in the budget processes at all levels.
According to him, ” you must demand to know how much is received from the federation account, how much revenue was generated, what projects or civilities are contained in the local government budgets, where they could be located and at what cost”.
Prof. Ugwu said that the involvement of CBOs and NGOs in the monitoring activities is very fundamental because it creates or gives room for local council development while also recognising their leadership role and responsibility in the partnership arrangement with the government.
“The involvement of community people through their organisation in both initiation and monitoring of budgets brings many benefits. It contributes local knowledge to the process and ensures that the problems that are addressed are priorities of target community “, He said.
