A group of Civil Society Organisations under the aegis of Green-the-Red Cluster has admonished the Ebonyi State Government to always prioritise items in the budget for all expenditures in the state.
The group observed that although the present administration in the state may have done a lot, especially in the social sector, such expenditures are not reflected in the capital budget performance statistics.
The group made the call Monday in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital, while briefing newsmen on its findings on the 2024 published third quarter state budget performance.
Leader of the group, Oliver Chima Ajah, during the briefing, observed that the state has consistently recorded poor documented budget performance over the years, especially in the social sectors of health, education as well as Water, Sanitation and hygiene.
He admonished the government to always draw all social sector related expenditures from the approved budget so as to make them count for the state in the published budget performance rating.
Ajah is also the Executive Director of the Cluster lead organisation, Development and Integrity Intervention Goal (DIG) Foundation.
He regretted that the Ebonyi State Government was yet to fulfil the 2001 Abuja declaration of allocating 15 percent budget to the health sector over the years, and never reached the highly talked about but not documented United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s recommendation of 26 percent budgetary allocation to education sector.
Ajah stated: “Again, Capital Budget performance over the years has been poor across social sectors.
“For instance, in 2022, the Ministry of Health achieved only 0.2 percent annual capital budget releases, while Ebony State Primary Healthcare Development Agency and others had 0 percent capital budget performances in 2022.
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“As at September 2024, the Ministry of Health has 5.6 percent, EBSHIA 8.8 percent, while EBSPHCDA and others recorded 0 percent performance.
“This shows that none of the health sector MDAs has a pass mark as each MDA is supposed to achieve at least 75 percent by the third quarter and 100 percent by December 2024.
“We recognise and commend the government for all ongoing projects.
“However, such spending should be traceable to the budget before it can be counted as performance for the state.”
Ajah called on the media to be more committed to supporting the achievement of the Green-the-Red project objectives in their reportage, stressing that capital budget is the major budgetary aspect from which the common people benefit.
Others who spoke, including the DIG Advisor, Emma Abah, and a Development Consultant and State Coordinator, USAID Health Workforce Management, Ibiam Azu Agwu, commended Governor Francis Nwifuru for his many Interventions in the health, education and other sectors.
They stressed that the essence of the briefing was not to discredit the government, but to draw its attention and those of all stakeholders to the need to jointly work towards improving the documented budget performance statistics of the state to represent actual sectoral expenditures.
Agwu emphasised: “Are we saying the Governor is not doing well?
“No.
“That’s not what we are saying here.
“The Governor is doing very well: he has revamped the health system in so many ways, but we are saying that going through the dashboard in the state website, there are a lot of gaps in the budget spending.
“Maybe the government will have to reconsider again, developing a realistic fundable budget, and ensure that the Ministries align whatever they are doing with the policy thrust of the government.
“There is also the very important need to build capacities of MDAs on effective memo writing to facilitate approvals and budget releases.”
The Green-the-Red Cluster is made up of eight Civil Society Organizations: DIG Foundation, Abraham’s Children Foundation, Da’Wah and Guidance Bureau of Nigeria, Faith Community Counselling Organisation, Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Centre, Methodist Care Ministry, Technology for Transformative Development Foundation and Ohinya Global Resources, and all members of Ebonyi Civil Society Network, otherwise known as Ebonyi Civil Society Situation Room.
Their mission is to advocate for increased budget performance so as to achieve the transformation of the statistical reds signifying poor performance to green, which represents credible performance of the budget.
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