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Oxfam and Kebetkache Women Development Resource Centre have organized a one day Exchange meeting on participatory Budgeting, Needs Assessment and Fair Taxation in Port Harcourt.
The meeting had in attendance community-based organizations drawn from Enugu, Cross Rivers, Delta and Rivers states.
Executive director of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource, Emem Okon, explained that the meeting was to share experience from the various states on their relationship with their state governments.
“In Delta State, government officials promised to work with community people, especially on Need assessment, so that their need can be reflected in the budget and subsequently implemented,” she said.
Okon noted that the project is a four-year plan, with the final phase meant for communities to put into practice what they had learnt all these years, adding that the meeting was for experience sharing on budget, Need Assessment and fair taxation as core focal point of the project.
In his remark, the OXFAM representative, Henry Ushie, said the aim of the meeting was to share experience from each state, especially those on the project, noting that tax justice, fiscal governance and transparency will always bring development to the people, adding that their intervention have link with the global community even as the work is done to help the vulnerable people at the community level.
Ushie tasked the people to be proactive and consistent because some day the work will translate to positive development, as some contractors had gone back to site to complete their project, noting that this may help to change the poverty level in some of the communities.
On project monitoring in Nsukka in Enugu State, especially at the Federal Government College Enugu, about 13 projects are yet to be completed, while sanitary condition at Obio Health Centre where the toilet facility is, is in bad shape and in a deplorable condition.
Rosemary Ukuegbu and Jude Amike who conducted Needs Assessment at Enugu South Local government Area lamented the lack of water in their communities given the likelihood of water-borne diseases.
Report from Delta State stated that some completed projects are not functional, especially hospital, while Burutu market has no water or toilet facility. In Cross Rivers State, the team conducted Need Assessment in some communities, noting that low income earners in the state may not pay tax or levy by next year.
Report also showed that in Rivers State, the state House of Assembly set up a committee on flooding, as the monitors tasked them to include community members in the committee.
Others who monitored projects in Rivers State said some contractors had returned to complete their project, while tasking the governor of the state, Barr. Nyesom Wike, to collaborate with credible non-governmental organizations in monitoring government projects at the community level, so as to help bring inclusion and transparency.
