By Sylvia Akpan, Government House Correspondent
As part of ways to have an inclusive bottom-top budget approach, the Cross River State Government has commenced consultative forums in preparation for the 2025 budget with sensitization exercises in North and Central districts.
The Special Adviser on Budget Monitoring and Evaluation, Mr. Otu Otu-Ita, said the exercise is to enable the government to take inputs from stakeholders in the local level to form the budget document for the 2025 appropriation bill.
“With over 50% fiscal performance of the 2024 budget for the current and capital expenditure, the State government is optimistic of achieving more and meeting the needs of the people in line with the financial guide document, the budget,” Otu-Ita remarked.
Addressing the congregation of chiefs, religious leaders, civil society organizations, non-government organizations, women, youth, and opinion leaders at the Ogoja and Ikom council halls, respectively, the Special Adviser said the engagement was to afford the budget office to have the people participate in the budgeting process and of the state for 2025 fiscal year.
“We cannot continue to sit in Calabar to decide what project should be done in different villages. The people in Calabar cannot know what the man in Ishibori, Ukelle, or Obudu wants. The era of government deciding what the people want to have is over; rather the people should tell the Government their most pressing needs that the Government must tackle in the year 2025.”
He said the administration of Governor Bassey Otu is committed to doing everything possible to prioritize the citizens’ needs within the available resources.
“Building a financial document that is the people’s budget, was in line with the administration’s philosophy of ‘People First’.
He posited that: “Without inputs from the people, there should not be a government. In the first instance, if you do not have the people, then there is no leadership. The Otu-led government believes that going forward, the input of the people is very critical to the development of the state.”
He outlines the 2025 budget policy thrust to include upscaling agro revolution, reducing the debt burden, enhancing social protection, and overhauling public schools. He added that the state government had already in the 2024 fiscal year, earmarked the construction of both urban and rural roads across the state, especially road networks in the urban towns of Ogoja, Ikom, and Ugep and with deliberate efforts to empower the citizens through agriculture.
Leave feedback about this