Maimuna Yusuf
The Fiscal Discipline and Development Advocacy Centre (FIDAC) has charge Kano state government on citizens’ driven budget, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and other platforms to use budget analysis as a tool for evidence-based advocacy in holding government accountable.
The charge was made by the thematic lead, Fiscal Transparency of Kano Open Government Partnership and member of Kano Budget Working Group, Akibu Hamisu at a workshop on budget analysis and tracking as a tool of promoting accountability and civic engagement held on Thursday at Mambayya House, Kano.
The event was organized by the Fiscal Discipline and Development Advocacy Centre (FIDAC) in partnership with Center for Development and Education (CDE), Organization for Community Civil Engagement (OCCEN), Open Government Partnership (OGP) and Kano Civil Society Forum (KCSF) with support from Center for Democratic Studies Organized.
One of the objectives of the event was to facilitate interactive discussion for understanding of citizen budget processes, analysis, implementations, tracking, accountability and to compliment government efforts of effective service delivery.
According to Hamisu, citizens budget is a process where community members are fully engaged from the preparatory stage to implementation and in monitoring the performance of the budget.
He urged government to always make budgets citizen driven to accommodate their demands for project ownership and sustainability.
The Executive Director, FIDAC and State Steering Committee Member, Kano OGP, Abdulsalam Muhammad Kani said the focus is on budget analysis, implementation assessment and to have a detailed understanding of the different components of the budget, especially fiscal, recurrent and projects allocation.
“As community leaders, mobilizers, community members or stakeholders, it is our civic responsibility to study the budget and know what has been budgeted for our community and to track it.
“Tracking is to make sure there is value for money and whatever is allocated to our community is executed to the later.
“We are simply complementing government efforts in terms of monitoring; legislature in terms of oversight function,” he explained.
He said an attempt has been made at the workshop to make participants have basic skills needed in budget analysis and tracking that can be used in advocacy and sensitization.
“Our major expectation is what we call buy-in from academia, professional bodies and representatives of CSOs to what is called citizens driven budget in Kano state,” he added.
Comrade Sani Bala represented Advocacy on Economic Diversification and Youth Development at the workshop.
He said: “Understanding budget is key because it is through it that citizens would understand what and what provisions are made for your community.”
Citizens’ driven budget encourages participation and helps community members in pushing for citizens generated demands into the budget,” he added.
