By Inusa Salihu, Maiduguri
THE Borno State Government has on Wednesday organized a Town Hall meeting to collect, discuss and deliberate on inputs for 2025 budget to effectively address the needs and aspirations of its citizenry.
Declaring open the Town Hall meeting which took place at the El-Kanemi Hall of the Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri Governor Babagana Zulum said the Town Hall meeting is to afford citizens the opportunity to make inputs into the 2025 budgets and meet the needs and aspirations of the citizenry, and inline with the present administration’s resolve in transparency and accountable to Borno people.
Represented by his Deputy, Alhaji Umar Kadafur said ” this meeting is inline with the international best practices and to afford stakeholders the opportunity to cross fertilize ideas and come up with transparent and accountable budgets that would meet the needs of the people”.
The Governor assured that all inputs made by the stakeholders will be incorporated into the 2025 budgets and properly implemented within the scarce resources of the government, as enshrined in the 10- point agenda and 25 year Development plan.
He then urged participants to feel free and participate actively to ensure smooth and successful deliberations.
He said any projects or memo which have not been captured in the 2025 budget will not be given approval, stressing that this have been part of the government policy of transparency and accountability.
Also, the Borno state Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Hon. Babagana Mallumbe said the aim of the Town Hall meeting is to have engagement with relevant stakeholders to discuss deliberate and come up with 2025 budgets that will be acceptable by all and sundry.
” This meeting is one of the transparency and accountability policy of the government to involve citizens in the budget, preparations, implementation and feedback. I therefore, call on the Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), Civil Organisations, clubs associations to contribute, so as to have people- oriented budget”, he added.
Also in his submission, the represented of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), while commending Governor Zulum for releasing N3 billion to settle pension and gratuity of the retired civil servants, called on the government to extend same to the workers of the local government areas.
In his remarks, the Borno state Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Dauda Iliya urged the government to organize quarterly media briefing to aquent citizen on the level of budget implementation and to track government expenditures.
While marking his contribution, the representative of the Persons With Disability (PWD), Mr. Ayuba Alamson appealed to the government to employ people with disability into the civil service and also make physically challenged- friendly policies. End
