Social Action Presents Budget Monitoring Findings to Akwa Ibom and Delta State Governments

Following the completion of its monitoring of the implementation of the 2015 budget of five Niger Delta states, Social Action’s budget advocacy coalition, the Niger Delta Citizens and Budget Platform has presented reports containing its findings to the key government officials in Akwa Ibom and Delta state.

According to Coordinator of the budget advocacy coalition Ken Henshaw, ‘it is important the governments get copies of this reports and use it as a guide to take action in future to make sure that budgets impact more on the people than it currently is.’
In Akwa Ibom state, the presentation was made by Executive Director of coalition partner Policy Alert, Mr Tijah Bolton, while in Delta state it was delivered by the Mrs. Bridget of the Int’l Centre for Women Empowerment & Child Dev. (ICWECD) based in the state capital Asaba.
The report contains findings by teams of budget monitors comprising of transparency and accountability activists, the media and community volunteers who were on the field for two weeks in early 2016, visiting sites of projects mentioned and allocated funds in the 2015 budgets of the various state.
Reports of health, education and food sufficiency project sites indicate that up to 80% of projects allocated funds were never executed in the states. ‘The difference between allocation and implementation is just too high. It is either the budget was too unrealistically made with impossible revenue expectations, or something else we don’t understand is going on,’ says Sebastian Kpalap, Executive Director of Citizens’ Voice Initiative and coalition member.
In the coming week, budget monitoring reports will be presented to other state governments in the Niger Delta.