EFCC: Budget Monitoring Crucial to Anti-graft War With increasing cases of non-implementation of both the national and states’ budget, as well as divertion of funds, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC ) has said unless the citizens are ready to brace up and monitor budget implementation, corruption will continue to increase. According to the EFCC, “The fight against corruption in public life would acquire greater traction only if and when citizens show more interest in monitoring budget implementation.” This was part of the presentations at a two-day workshop on ‘Budget Tracking’ organised by the commission through its Enlightenment and Re-orientation Unit in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, yesterday. In his keynote address, EFCC Deputy Director, Public Affairs, Osita Nwajah, who represented the commission Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde, said the workshop became necessary given the need to educate the people on budget tracking and monitoring to fight against economic and financial crimes. Nwajah explained that the workshop was part of the prevention mandate of the EFCC geared towards ensuring that citizens’ participation at all levels of budget processes for better service delivery and developmental projects were delivered. One of the resource persons, Bashir Bello, in his lecture on ‘Budget Monitoring and Tracking’, explained that section 14 of the 1999 Constitution allows public participation in good governance. He urged all the participants at the workshop to take greater interest in budget monitoring, as doing so would enthrone good governance, accountability and development. Dr. Oji Ogbureke, who delivered a lecture on ‘Budget Analysis; Evaluation and Social Audit’, took the group through hands-on exercises on how to analyze and evaluate budgets using required tools. Participants were drawn from community-based organisations, non-governmental organisations; Faith-based organisations and staff of local government areas in Ebonyi State.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 08:57:14 +0000