Mohammad Sani
Kano Budget Working Group in collaboration with Kano state Ministry Planning and Budget with support from PERL FCDO organized a town hall citizens consultation meeting on 2022 budget process.
PERL or Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn is a public-sector accountability and governance program, funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of the UK.
The event was conducted across the five Kano Emirate Councils (Bichi, Gaya, Kano, Karaye and Rano) simultaneously on Sunday with over 300 participants drawn across People living with disabilities, community-based organizations (CBOs), traditional and religious leaders, trade unions, academia, citizens’, women and youth groups.
The public consultative town hall meetings are part of the Kano state mandate in embracing reforms towards inclusive budget processes through strengthening citizens’ participation in budget formulation, implementation, monitoring and tracking.
Also, it was aimed at informing, consulting and generating demands from participants as citizens’ input in the on-going preparatory stage of 2022 budget.
The activity is one of pre-requisites to win World Bank SFTAS DLI 2.1 grant for the state.
SFTAS or State Fiscal Transparency and Accountability Sustainability DLIs are Disbursement-linked indicators under the four key result areas. There are nine DLIs under four key result areas and each of the DLIs has specific annual disbursement-linked results to be achieved by states for each year of the Program.
The DLI 2.1 requires citizens’ input from formal public consultations and citizens’ budget based on approved 2022 state budget published online by end of April 2022 with functional online feedback mechanism.
Speaking to participants at Rano Emirate Council, a civil society advocate and member Kano Budget Working Group, Sagir Salihu Chedi Chedi said the objectives of the meeting is to seek for the citizens’ demand for inclusion in the state budget and ensure continuous engagement between government and citizens’ group.
He re-emphasized the importance of knowing and understanding budget processes from formulation, implementation, monitoring and tracking of the budget as well as audit report.
A representative from the state Ministry of Planning and Bugdet, Auwalu Ibrahim Soron Dinki urged participants to follow-up with projects allocated for their communities in the budget.
Civil society advocates who spoke at the event include Isiyaku Ahmad, Abdussalam Muhammad Kani, Umar Saleh Anka, Awaisu Garun Malam and Hajiya Rabi Gezawa.
The Citizens’ nominated project captured in 2020 for Rano Emirate Council in the Citizens Accountability Report (CAR) was presented to the representatives from the 10 Local Government Areas (LGAs). There were no objections, but the CBOs demanded additional projects.
LGAs that were not captured in CAR gave fresh demands for inclusion into the 2022 budget.
Stallion Times reports that on 23rd September, 2021 citizens’ group attended the presentation of the Audited report as at financial year ended 31st December, 2020 by Kano state Auditor General.
The CAR based on audited financial statements was published on Triumph newspaper and online.
During the town hall consultation meeting across the five Emirate Councils, citizens’ generated inputs by participants were drawn from health, education, infrastructure, agriculture and environment sectors.
Makiru Adamu Kibiya of Kibiya Youth Concern Forum observed that much of the demands by CBOs in the last exercise was not captured in the budget and they are face with another round of generating demands. He demanded explanation.
Ismaila Musa Tudunwada representing Promoting Literacy in Tudunwada observed that when they track uncompleted projects and submit reports to Local Government Secretariat, no action was taken.
He called for more sensitization on how CBOs can push their demands to logical conclusion.
On his part, Yakubu Murtala of Garun Malam Concern Forum gave a short success story presentation.
In it, his CBO tracked the uncompleted construction of Government Girls Junior Secondary School, Dorowar Sallau, Garun Malam. They submitted their report to the legislator who presented their findings at the State House of Assembly.
The project has now been completed and the school is in use.
