PH Mundial – Port Harcourt Online Newspaper News Across The Region
Related Articles
By Young E. Freeborn, Warri
An internationally acclaimed non-governmental organization in Nigeria, the BudgiT Foundation, with support from Ford Foundation, has ended a one day capacity building workshop for selected community champions across the three senatorial districts in Delta State.
The event, which was held on August 8, 2022 in Asaba, the capital of Delta State brought together community leaders, representatives of other organizations and advocacy groups across the state.
The capacity building workshop, which was in three different sections, majorly centred on budget advocacy, which include the monitoring constituency projects in the different senatorial districts in the state to ensure such approved projects are completed and done to specifications by contractors handling them.
Speaking on budget advocacy, Miss Ayomide, one of the training officers told the participants to always liaise, as community champions in their various communities, with their representatives in the National Assembly and the communities they are representing as a way to pass the right information to the populace.
She said the budget is public information which supposed to be accessible to all, but as a result of ignorance on the part of the community people, such vital public document is always hidden from the people, adding that, “it may result to budget paddling and hijacking of projects by these representatives.”
Delta State coordinator of BudgiT Foundation, Mr. Andrew Ebigwu, explained how Tracka, a unit of the NGO saddled with the duty of tracking and monitoring constituency projects in the different communities, could help community champions achieve their aims and objectives.
“The Tracka is an important unit in the BudgiT Foundation which is saddled with the duty of tracking and monitoring constituency projects in the country. It will help you gather information on the annual budget and type of projects approved for your constituencies and communities.
“After the constitution of a country, the second powerful weapon of a every government is the budget. No government can run successfully without a budget. This is why it’s very ideal for you to have access to the budget and know the kind of projects approved for your areas. It’s also your duty as community champions to know the developmental and infrastructural needs of your people to help you relate same to the representative or the appropriate government agency or ministry.”
Speaking to our correspondent on their experiences after the workshop, some of the participants lauded BudgiT Foundation for releasing such vital information to them on budget advocacy and how to monitor and secure their approved projects as community champions.
Many of them described the workshop as timely and productive, as they equally believed that their training would yield practical results if the information at their disposal was put to immediate use. They also thanked all the training officers that gave lectures on the different selected topics and areas.
The capacity building training workshop which was attended by over fifty participants from the three senatorial districts of the state ended with an interactive section within each senatorial district, as they were made to pick five most valuable projects from the 2022 federal government constituency projects in Delta State that BudgiT Foundation would help to track and monitor in the various constituencies and communities.
