USAID, DIG Foundation train Ebonyi communities on budget preparatory

The United States Agency for International Development(USAID) in partnership with Development and Integrity Intervention Goal(DIG) Foundations has enlightened communities in Ebonyi state on budget preparation.

This was as DiG through USAID scale Green-The-Red Cluster organized a Citizen Government Accountability town hall meeting for selected stakeholders in Ebonyi central zone.

The meeting was with the supported by USAID.

Executive Director of DIG Foundation, Oliver Chima Ajah, during the meeting said the program aimed at prioritizing the needs of the people into what he called community charter of demand that will form a guide line for Ministries and government agencies in preparing 2025 budget.

He said, “today’s program is theme governance accountability town hall meeting and we have coined this town hall meeting into 2025 budget preparation.

“So today we created a platform for Ebonyi central zone housing Ikwo,Ezza South Federal constituency community members and across the state here.
At the end of this town hall meeting, we will be able to prioritize the need of the communities bedded into what we call community charter of demand that those MDS will now adapt or select from it at the preparatory of 2025 budget.

“This particular program that is supported by USAID started in April but we at DIG have been organizing town hall meeting.

“I think there will be a change but I can not make an official statement till next week when the second quarter budget analysis will be done then we will now know the result of cause you know that the Green the red project is trying to see how we can improve from the previous administration that was not performing well in terms of capital budget release. But there have been a lot of commitment from the stakeholders”‘.

Also, Dr. Abah Emma Abah, Technical advisor of DIG Foundation collaboration Mr. Ajah said, “This meeting is about convergence between the government officials from different ministries, departmental and agencies of Ebonyi state and the community governance structure.
“The whole essence of this meeting is calling for them to prioritize their needs so that they can now participate in 2025 budget processing where they can ask the government to include their needs in the budget”.