Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) in conjunction with the Bayelsa State Non-Governmental Organisations' Forum (BANGOF) and funding from the Royal Norwegian Embassy has organised a two-day capacity building workshop for the state actors in oil management.The two day capacity building workshop, which was last week at Celebrity Hotel, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, with the theme, Strengthening Governance in Bayelsa State, was put together in pursuance of the 'strengthening oil revenue management in the Niger Delta project.Over 18 participants drawn from various ministries, departments and agencies, including Office of Secretary to Bayelsa State Government, Deputy Governor's Office, Office of Head of Service and Bayelsa State Micro Credit Admin Agency, attended the workshop which was convened to strengthen the capacities of civil servants as stakeholders in the management of oil resources as a way to promoting transparency and accountability in resource management.The participants used the opportunity to discuss barriers to achieving value for money', good governance' and the 'facilitation of broad based economic development agenda of the Bayelsa state government.Expressing gratitude to ANEEJ and Norwegian Government for putting together such an important workshop, the participants urged the organisers to further the capacity building activities of the civil service in the state to enable them carry out activities as a follow up to the issues raised during the workshop.They commended the Bayelsa State Government for initiating such broad based development agenda, as Bayelsa State Stimulus Scheme, Bayelsa State Sustainable Development and Micro-credit Scheme, Micro-finance/credit for farmers, Medium term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Medium term Sector Strategy MTSS, Due process and E-Governance, among others. They equally observed that the achievement of value for money, good governance and the implementation of these broad based development agenda left much to be desire and identified some barriers, which include lack of public participation, inadequate supervision and monitoring of contracts, poor quality of implementation of development agenda and poor quality of planning and design.Other barriers are political patronage, lack of continuity of policies, primitive accumulation of wealth, selfishness and greed, poor legislation and porous laws, uninspiring leadership, lack of social security and commitment to Governance and inappropriate staffing, among others.In a communiqu, signed by Mr. Poripo O. Samson for Bayelsa Ministry of Sports Development, Dr. (Mrs) Betty A. Ominigbo for Ministry of Special Duties (Bayelsa West), Godson Jim-Dorgu and Bayelsa State Non-Governmental Organisations Forum (BANGOF) and Ramat Umoru and ANEEJ, the participants called on the state government to strengthen appropriate regulatory frameworks to monitor and implement its development agenda.They said that the state government should set up appropriate institutions to implement development agenda and initiate and implement value re-orientation programmes/training for public officers. This would help to build staff capacity to implement development programmes.The government, according to them, should also allocate funds for MDAs to involve all relevant stakeholders when preparing budget and other public documents, calling on civil servants generally to deepen their commitment to implement its development agenda.The needs of the local communities, they stressed, should serve as the basis for government development plans.
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