BY CHIGOZIE UZOSIKE#
The Coalition of Civil Society Organizations, under the auspices of Citizens Accountability Assembly (CAA) has described the failure of the Imo State Government led by Owelle Rochas Okorocha to present the 2018 budget as insensitivity to one of the most important document that drives development of a state.
Speaking to newsmen in Owerri, the Coordinator of the CAA, Barr. Chidi Igwe frown that important state matter like the presentation of the state annual budget that the entire citizens of Imo State and the whole world were waiting to hear was treated with such levity.
According to him, “this underscores the un-seriousness at which important state matters are handled, especially that large number of citizens who came from far and near at the State House of Assembly Complex last Tuesday to listen and witness the presentation went home disappointed”.
“We equally consider the belated reason for the cancellation of the budget presentation by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor as flimsy, insensitive and not in tune with acceptable international best practices and due process, adding that whatever may have caused the cancellation of the earlier scheduled presentation of the state budget was not in the best interest of the state”.
He called on the government to take budget issue as an important state matter, adding that the announcement of the budget figures would have sparked off economic activities, shown how serious the government is and attracted investment to the state. According to him, no state in the world has developed without a budget that is participatory and all-inclusive. He urged the state government to key into the national plan by presenting the budget early.
The Convener, Coalition of Journalists Against Corruption (COJAC), Chigozie Uzosike posited that apart from the constitution, another most important document that the government must take serious is the budget, stressing that with the presentation of the budget, investors will take the state serious and begin to push resource development materials to the state that will create employment for the teeming unemployed youths. He noted that the economic development of the state is determined by the direction of the budget.