Group commends Jigawa govt for reflecting citizens’ input in budget

The Exceptional Leadership and Integrity Promotion (ELIP) initiative has commended the Jigawa state government for reflecting 548 citizens’ inputs in the 2024 approved budget with N47.07 billion cost of improvement of the projects.

This was contained in a findings documents of comparative analysis of citizens’ inputs into the 2024 approved budget conducted by the ELIP initiative obtained by Online Tribune in the state indicated that more citizens’ inputs in the 2024 budget than ever before.

Findings by Online Tribune indicated that there is a consistent reflection of citizens’ inputs in the Jigawa state annual budget where people in the state through Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Community Base Organizations (CBOs) had submitted a total of 1,105 inputs to the state government during the 2024 budget preparation.

The documents obtained by the Online Tribune in the state revealed that “a total of 1105 inputs submitted and 548 inputs reflected this represents 49.6 per cent of total inputs submitted.

“The number of citizens’ inputs reflected in the budget amounting to over N47.O7 billion representing 26.8 per cent of the total budget of N175.4 billion of 2024.

“Citizens gave more inputs are education, agriculture, water resources, health, women affairs, economic employment and works.”

The comparative analysis indicated that number of citizens’ inputs reflected in 2024 is higher than that of 2023 and subsequent previous years.

Online Tribune gathered that there were 543 online inputs by citizens in 2022 which only 37.0 per cent reflected with only 20.0 per cent implementation and in 2023 the number of inputs by citizens was 945 and government entertained 341, “but in 2024, 1105 and over 562 had been accepted and reflected.”

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The group said is a transparent process in the JIgawa begins with individual citizens’ inputs usually harvested and pushed forward to the government to be included in the annual budget for better lives of the citizens.

ELIP-initiative is an organization dedicated its resources into collating and analyzing the inputs and its eventual submission to the affected MDAs for onward application.