Rivers Assembly begins public scrutiny of 2018 budget

FOR the first time in its three budget approvals for the executive arm of government in Rivers state, the State House of Assembly, Monday began public scrutiny of the 2018 Appropriation Bill with relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies MDAs invited to defend their budgets.
The executive and legislature in Rivers state had come under serious criticisms by the opposition and civil society groups who accused the Wike administration of running his government without a budget or at best running a secret budget.
They said such was against the principles of accountability and good government and open to massive corruption even as some of the groups have consistently declared that despite efforts to get a copy of the 2017 budget, the document was not accessible anywhere.
The Assembly, in an apparent move to respond to the demand of the civil society organisations recently, mandated the House Committee on Appropriation and various standing committees of the house to serve as sub-committees when various MDAs would be invited to defend their estimates.
They also advised the Appropriation Committee to ensure that interested civil society groups were allowed to participate in public hearings towards the final passage of the 2018 budget.
The Ministries of Works and Information and Communications, including parastatals under them, had their turn on Monday with the Commissioner for Information and Communications Barr. Emma Okah, expressing satisfaction with the process saying it was the part of the beauty of democracy.
He said; “its one of the best practices of democracy to ensure that budget estimates are defended and scrutinized by the legislature and to some extent also you have public participation in budget-making”.
The Commissioner added; “So we encourage it and we are very happy that it is coming the way it is doing. I believe that at the end of the day we will be able to come up with an appropriation law that meets the yearning and aspirations of the people of Rivers state viz a viz the ministry of Information and communications as well as parastatals under it”
On his part, Dunamene Dakor, Commissioner for Works speaking after defending his ministry’s budget said the State Government would complete all ongoing road projects.
“Our envelope for this year is quite large. We intend to complete all existing roads, about 102 of them, we have completed some of them. There are others proposed, we hope to ensure we complete all of them. Our objective is to deliver the best road you can find anywhere in the world and at the best price”.
Recall that there was little or no external inputs in the 2016 and 2017 budgets of the Wike’s government as the house of assembly approved each of the same days there were presented by the governor, a move which attracted the administration so many negative criticisms.