Annual Budgets Are Public Documents, Should Not Be Hurded: Alamieseigha

 

 

The Bayelsa State Commissioner for Budget and Economic planning, Akpoebide  Alamieseigha  has declared that the annual budget is a public document and therefore should  be made available to the public if need arises.

 This is coming on heels of the bottle necks people including the leader of the delegation  face trying to get the budget especially journalist even in the era of freedom of information act.

 Speaking on Wednesday in Yenagoa when a non-governmental organization advocacy group led by Robinson Kuroghobogha paid him a courtesy call, he said that was very wrong for anybody to withhold the budget stating that is a public document that should be assessable to anybody that needs it.

 The Commissioner however thanked the group for what they are doing stating that the government was also doing similar thing.

 He thanked the group for going to the remote communities to get their needs adding that government cannot be everywhere.

On what the government is doing to develop the communities he said that already the ministry had been to the twenty four constituencies to know what their needs are.

Alameseigha said “Budget is a public document. That is why as soon as budget is announced, we print them and take to all the ministries and even to Abuja. Likewise other states do send their own to us. It is a public document it’s not something that is hidden that somebody will say, I’m going to horde it. It is not right. 

“I have already sent one copy each to all the assembly members. We have sent twenty seven copies to the house of assembly.

“We have been in all the twenty four constituencies and we have been met and we asked what the needs of these communities are? They will now write their needs and I told the government for us to embark on this, we need of up 5 billion naira.

We want to do it in a way that the eight local governments will be captured even if they are two projects all round. Let everybody have that sense of belonging that government is doing what we expect them to do. No matter how small that community is, they will benefit something. That was the advice I gave to the government and they are still working on it.

“SUKUL is a federal government project that works with the state. This ministry also supervises SUKUL. What we do there is to take the poor and the vulnerable group in every society. They generate that by going to the community although it has been a major problem for us to capture those that are actually poor because they will always ask you, are you the one that is feeding me and I like it like that as an Ijaw man.

 “So what we do is to go to the communities and ask the compound chief to generate the names of poor people in that community. Right now, through the NDcare those people will be given N10, 000 each. I think we are capturing about 450 communities.

“We are in the same page with you but the only difference is that you go directly to the communities and generate the projects that they need. For us, not necessarily that we must go to all the communities, it is a difficult task but you are going further to all those small communities to see that they are captured.

 “I just love what you are doing. As a ministry we will interface with you to a certain level but there are some situations that  I won’t be able to come in until the authority approves but it is a good development.  

Speaking earlier, the leader of the delegation, Robinson Kuroghobogha said that the primary duty of NGOs in the state was development advocacy adding that currently the group was working with Stakeholders Democracy Network (SDN) a London based organization with and office in Rivers State to bring development to the rural communities in the state.

“We are working on a project to assist communities build their capacities, to engage government to develop their communities. We have actually visited 46 communities across the eight LGAs in Bayelsa State.

“We hope that we will able to do a lot because it is not going to be a one day event. Our basic interest is that you have made a commitment and we hope to get it. We are going to secure funds required to go to the communities from our partners so we wouldn’t border government about funding our activities. He said.