Ekiti plans three-year budget to tackle poverty

Ekiti State Government has commenced preparations for a three-year budget arrangement, tailored towards achieving the eight-point agenda of the Dr. Kayode Fayemi-led administration which is focused on tackling poverty in the state.Fayemi made this known in Iloko- Ijesha, Osun State, at a workshop organised by the British Department for International Development for the members of the state House of Assembly.This was contained in a statement in Ado-Ekiti on Wednesday.The governor, who said the budget would assist in incorporating projects which could not be implemented in the previous years budget in the three-year plan, asserted that this was necessary so that budgetary would not become an annual ritual but something that would conform to his eight-point agenda as well as international principles and standards on budget process.Fayemi noted that budget process was not an exclusive duty of the legislature, even as the executive arm of government needed to provide the legislature with a framework to come up with an appropriation law; adding that the executive-legislature relationship was to fight off want, degradation, injustice and poverty which daily challenged the existence of the people.He said,It is in this context that I wish to appeal to you, distinguish legislators, to take the best advantage of this workshop to make the 2012 budget and the subsequent ones very pragmatic and implementable. The budget must, as a matter of fact, be uniquely different from the past appropriation laws that are largely un-implementable because of the glaring lacuna between the revenue and the expenditure profiles.He stressed the need to see the instrumentality of budget as a catalyst for overall development which had severally been abused in the past and had occasioned re-appearance of same projects in several budgets, making government look unreliable.The governor said the workshop had underscored the position of his administration on governance as a serious business; emphasising that its intricacies, methodology and challenges should be adequately prepared for with all seriousness.He added that the objective of the workshop was in consonance with the determination of his administration to focus and encourage capacity building framework for efficient public service delivery.
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