By Usman Muhammed Zaria
No fewer than 1,500 inputs from citizens across Jigawa State have been received for the 2027 budget by a non-governmental organisation, Exceptional Leadership and Integrity Promotion (ELIP).
The Executive Director of ELIP, Comrade Isah Mustapha, disclosed this during a citizens’ town hall meeting organised by the Jigawa State Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning in collaboration with ELIP.
The meeting was held at the Sir Ahmadu Bello Hall in Dutse.
According to him, their organization has conducted three town-hall meeting across the three Senatorial zones with aimed to receive citizen’s inputs for the 2027 annual budget preparation.
He pointed out that, as part of effort give chances to the divers range of citizens and other stakeholders, ELIP gets one representative from 287 political wards who goes round community by community and asked them to provide three key priority projects to be incorporated in the 2027 state annual budget.
Comrade Isah Mustapha noted that, one of the key challenges is lack of awareness for the communities to differentiate needs and wants as well as the key priorities projects.
He said, though the ELIP embarked on massive sensitization on how to differentiate between needs and wants but still it remains a major challenges.
He added that, ELIP also sensitized government on how to change the pattern of priority and spending towards human capital development projects especially around health, education, empowerment, environment and water and sanitation.
Mustapha, assured to submit and follow-up the inputs to government and ensure the budget is tally with citizens request.
He therefore, commended Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning for the support and openness to the civil society organizations to ensure accountability, fairness to Jigawa people.
Editing By Yusuf Zubairu
