By Freshgist
The Akwa Ibom State Fiscal Responsibility Board Director-General, Mr. Victor Edet has Commended the United States Agency for International Development, Nigeria - State2State activities over their development strides in the state.
In a Quarterly Conflict Mitigation and Prevention Dialogue in Uyo yesterday, Mr. Edet, who is also the Secretary of State Transformation Committee told newsmen that State2State activities has helped in the development of the state working budget calendar and that of the Local Government Areas .
According to him, "prior to USAID Nigeria-State2State intervention, we did not have what is called Budget Calendar at the state level talkless of the Local Government Areas. The Budget Calendar helps us to know where and when the account circulation will commence, and when the account of threshold will be submitted for audit purposes, including when the account of the state will be published".
He also mentioned that, budget process manual guides explains how budget is conceived, executed and how budget is being monitored and plotted out.
According to him, "we commend the activities of State2State organization for its intervention so far. This has been a great help which has leverage us through the programme called States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) in States
SFTAS programme is a World Bank intervention programme which states were compelled to key into and Akwa Ibom State could not have recorded the performance if the State2State activities were not deployed".
He disclosed that prior the intervention of State2State programme, the state government used to engaged the services of consultants in the production of Medium Term Expenditure Framework (M - TEF) but after training and capacity development, they were able to produce the 2022 M-TEF by state officials for the first time.
"With that idea also, the 2023/2025 M-TEF was also produced. The amount of money the state government used to spend in hiring consultants to make M-TEF documents now became utilized in the development projects in the state.
"So, the first Public Finance Management Assessment in Akwa Ibom state was through the intervention of S2S in 2021; it helps us to identify the gap areas and also sustain their capacity building towards the gap Area.
Declaring open the event earlier, The State Team Lead- State Accountability, Transparency and Effective State2State Activity, Mr Borve Paago- Imabel disclosed that the quarterly Conflicts Mitigation and Prevention Dialogue was expedient to appraise its contributions in conflicts resolution in the state especially, after the 2023 general elections and current Economic Crisis in the state.
The Team Lead who was represented by Dr Iboro Nelson urged the government to ensure timely payment of Salaries to people working, palliative should also be given to those that don't have a job not people that are able to do already , to avoid protest and other demonstrations.
"We will also look at the conflict issues arising from the last quarter and the land dispute issues sourounding Eket itam, Wait Eket and Ibeno, is already affecting the Economy important of the area and this is one of the reasons this meeting becomes necessary.
"We will also discuss the LGA budget taking to cognizant the drivers of conflicts and implications of the budget because what government should be doing now is to see how his people can survive to a large content because survival is the only important thing now." She added
She commended the State government for it's initiative in resolving the Eket- Ibeno crisis amongst others in the state.
Also speaking, the State2State Conflict specialist Akwa Ibom, Mr Cosmos Dinee said "We expect that as part of Budget processes as the government budget for service delivery area of Primary Health, Basic Education and WASH, we want to see how those budgeting provision addresses infrastructural needs, so that people will be employed in the three areas to curb conflicts, because from our findings, unemployment is the major driver of conflicts in Akwa Ibom state."
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