ActionAid Presents Budget Manual to Public

from All Africa

Daily Trust (Abuja)

By Sunday Williams

ActionAid Nigeria, an NGO engaged in the fight against poverty yesterday in Abuja presented to the public a manual of public finance analysis (PFA) as a participatory tool kit for communities and civil society organisation to enhance proper understanding of budgetary processes.

In his opening remarks, the Africa Regional Governance coordinator, ActionAid International, Hussaini Abdu said the manual which took them three years to prepare is one key project at the international level of the organisation.

He said the purpose of the work is to demystify the complex process of budgeting and bring people close to it.

"It took very painstaking efforts to make it from an expert work to public work. The key issue is about strengthening democracy and promoting accountability."

He argued that budgeting has become a key challenge in Nigeria, saying the PFA manual offers the communities and civil society organisations a proactive measure to make sure that there is transparency and accountability in its processes.

In his address, ActionAid country director, Dr. Otive Igbuzor, said his organisation at the international level placed a lot of importance on budgetary process as it concerns the distribution of income and wealth between groups of people in the society.

"One of the challenges that lead to perpetuation of poverty is improper utilization of the resources in the world. It is the desire of our organisation to deal with this challenge that made us focus on resource utilization and appropriate strategies and policies to eradicate poverty."

Dr Igbuzor said the PFA manual was conceived to transform Nigeria budget and make it participatory, transparent and accountable so as to eradicate poverty and aid sustainable development

He said: "The manual is unique in at least two respects. First, it is written in very simple form for it is meant to be used by communities and organisations of the lowly. Secondly, the manual is comprehensive and addresses a lot of issues that will be of interest to people that are involved in development work."

Reviewing the manual, Professor Sam Egwu of the department of political science, University of Jos said the 347-page manual is very successful in its objective to demystify and deconstruct the budgetary process and the empowerment of citizens as well their mobilization to engage the budget process as a means to eradicate poverty.

He lauded as unique the explicit statement in the manual that poverty eradication is unattainable unless government and public sector spending are subjected to public scrutiny at all levels.

Professor Egwu congratulated the ActionAid family for remaining focused in the fight to eradicate poverty and empowering citizens and organisations and institutions to engage in the development process.