By Philip Yatai

Concern Civil Society in Kaduna State has appeal to the Kaduna State House of Assembly to conduct public hearing on the state’s proposed budget of N245.4 billion for the 2020 fiscal year.

Malam Mustapha Jumare, Core-Chair, Open Government Partnership (OGP) – Civil Society, Kaduna State, on Monday led a delegation of Concern Civil Society to submit a letter to the leadership of the House, through the Office of the Speaker, requesting for the public hearing.

Gov. Nasir El-Rufai is expected to lay the propose budget before the House on Tuesday.

Jumare told newsmen shortly after he presented the letter, that the move was to open the doors of the Assembly for citizens to engage the entire budget as well as the sectoral discussions.

He pointed out that the House has never conducted a public hearing on budget proposal for the citizens to engage and make input, which he described as crucial for citizens participation and ownership.

He noted that being the only state that has signed onto OGP for accountability, transparency and citizen engagement, conducting public hearing would further open the budget process to the public to engage.

According to him, the public hearing if held, will deepen citizen engagement in the budget process by providing the needed platform for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to further make inputs into the budget.

“CSOs have engaged the budget process up to the budget town hall meeting held on Oct. 12.

“But to ensure quality input to the budget by the citizens, there is the need to engage the process at the House of Assembly to strengthen citizens engagement in budget development and implementation.

“This has never happened before, so we saw the need to write and inform the House of the importance of citizen engagement of the budget through public hearing.

“We equally appealed to the leadership of the House to allow civil society and the citizens to engage the process during the sectoral discussions to be able to make critical input into the final budget.”

He commended the leadership of the House for supporting the Executive in passing key laws to strengthen OGP in the state, like Fiscal Responsibility Law, Public Procurement Laws and Finance Law among others.

He disclosed that the House has equally assigned a Desk Officer to serve as a liaising officer between civil society and the Assembly, “we really commended the House for this laudable act.

“We also commended the House for leading the Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Working Group of the OGP along with CSOs.

“We, therefore urged the House to carry out robust oversight functions during the implementation of the budget to ensure prudent use of resources, accountability and transparency.”

Jumare further commended the state government for allocating 72.24 per cent of the N245.4 billion propose budget for capital project.

He, however, said: “There are areas we really need to look at as citizens before the budget is pass by the Assembly and the only window is public hearing.”