Traditional rulers, persons with disabilities, youth leaders, market women and members of the civil society organisations (CSOs) among others have expressed concern over the high number of dilapidated schools and primary health centers across the 20 wards of Ikwo local government area of Ebonyi State.
The stakeholders called for the renovation, reconstruction, and equipping of the schools and health centres, as captured in the 2025 proposed budget of the local government area.
The stakeholders made the call during a one-day citizens’ engagement workshop on the review of the 2025 proposed budget of the Ikwo local government area of the state held at the Osborn La Palm Hotel Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital.
The workshop was organised by the United States International Development, USAID, and State Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness State2State Activity, Nigeria.
The stakeholders who commended the agency for the several trainings and workshops organised for them have provided them the opportunity to know that they are relevant in the budget processes of their different local government areas.
One of the participants and a community leader, Dr Kelvin Udenyi from Okpoitumo, called on the council chairman, Mr Sunday Nwankwo, to tackle the issues of school dilapidation and lack of primary healthcare centres in some communities and wards as captured in the proposed budget.
“Let me first commend the local government chairman for engaging the citizen’s in budget preparation. I will also want him to show more interest in the area of Health and Education. When you go to Ikwo today, there are so many dilapidated schools building that needs reconstruction or putting up a new one.
“Also in the area of health, there are many communities that doesn’t have any primary healthcare center. Our appeal to him is to put more effort in health and education.”
Dr. Udenyi debunked the insinuation that the local government chairman concentrated his projects in a very few area adding that some of those areas not captured in the 2025 budget were captured in the 2023 and 2024 budget.
“By ensuring the distribution of the projects in the different areas, there will be equity, fair play and justice done to all the communities and wards of the local government which the council chairman has been doing since his assumption of office,” he said.
He also commended the council chairman for the numerous boreholes he has dug for the different communities and wards in the local government adding that with the provisions of the boreholes, the problem of water scarcity is becoming a thing of the past in the local government.
Another participant, Hajia Saydatu Ajah of the Da’wah and Guidance Bureau of Nigeria, said that the civil society organisation has been involved in the monitoring of the execution of the projects captured in the budget, adding that they had ensured that such projects are implemented.
She said that State2State has provided them with the enablement to carry out their duties for the betterment of society and called on the council chairman to ensure that all the projects captured in the budget are executed.
The local government area manager of USAID State2State, Ebere Victoria Eze, said that one of the things they intend to achieve in the workshop was to ensure a participatory budget.
“After our consultation, we felt that there was the need to ensure that what the citizens identified were actually captured in the budget. That informed the conduct of this budget consultation. We are here to review the budget. The citizens are happy that what they used the community charter of demand to advocate for were actually the things that the Chairman of Ikwo local government articulated in the 2025 budget.
The workshop also intends to ensure that the citizens’ voices are heard, the budget is participatory, and their needs are taken care of.
“I want to also let you know that previously, in 2023, when we reviewed the Ikwo budget, there was no allocation in WASH sector but we are happy that about 13 projects made it into the 2025 budget but that’s not all, we are still asking for more.
“We commend him for ensuring that the citizens identified needs were included in the budget, we are asking for releases and implementation because without releases and implementation, what we did here is as good as nothing,” Eze said.
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