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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News

Sunday, August 01 2004 Search : Vol 17 No.30

News Opinion Features Sports Chic Columnists Faith Personage Magazine Interview Business Week Sunday Politics Ecowas Report Family Line Foreign News Randle seeks accommodation of all interests in budget process KALU OKWARA GOVERNMENT has been called upon to exhibit utmost transparency in its budget processes by involving all the relevant stakeholders so that budget objectives could have the desired impact on the socio-economic lives of the citizens. The call was made by Bashorun J.K Randle, the immediate past president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), at a budget monitoring workshop organised by the Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC) of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos recently. Bashorun Randle, who chaired the occasion, appealed to government to ensure that the interests of the mass are taken into account in the entire processes of budget preparation and implementation. Earlier in his keynote address, the JDPC Archdiocesan director, Rev. Father Matthew Ogunyase, said the objective of the three-day workshop was primarily to acquaint and involve the civil society in the budget preparation and monitoring. He said over the years, successive governments in Nigeria have not shown enough commitment to transparent budget processes, stressing that alienating the voters from participating in budget processes was a denial of their political right. The communique issued at the end of the workshop observed that budget being the second most essential national document after constitution in any democracy, should not be subjected to the incessant institutional and legal bottlenecks in its processes. "There is undue delay in the preparation, approval and release of this document, which results in poor budget implementation" and lack of transparency in budget processes aid poverty, underdevelopment and impoverishment of people, which eventually breed social conflict", the communique said. In the communique , the participants at the workshop resolved that: The National Assembly should as a matter of urgency pass into law the freedom of information brill which is expected to aid public access to information on budget preparation and implementation; that Nigeria needs a new constitution which should be realised through a national conference; that over-centralisation of governance is against the principles of federalism; that to broaden civil society participation in governance, Nigeria should practice true federalism; that civil society advocacy at the three tiers of government would ensure active participation of the populace in budget processes; and that in order to achieve a sustainable civil society participation in budget process, a civil society coalition to be coordinated by the JDPC was formed.

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