Poor budget implementation and under-representation of the 27 local government areas in Imo State have been identified as the cause to the unending poverty situation in the state.
This was the outcome of a town hall meeting of mainly community based Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, organized recently in Owerri, by the South Sahara Social Development Organisation, SSSDO.
Among other issues raised in the round-table meeting, they wanted the Imo State government to run an open budget system, a process, which they said, would not only capture the lack of basic social amenities in the rural areas, but would also go a long way to address the continual denial of the electorate to enjoy the benefits of their God given resources.
Another area of concern was what they considered “inexplicable” that the Imo State government had refused despite invitations to participate in the many accountability and transparency programmes by the CSOs in the state.
They also appealed to the government to form it as a habit to endeavour to organize a public hearing in order to know how far the people had been deprived of their dividends of democracy, adding that through the public hearing development could be extended to the rural areas and the people would have input in the budget, in order to make it the people’s budget.
One of the facilitators of the South Sahara Social Development Organization, Mr. Emeka Ononamadu, said the programme was aimed at intimating the electorate that their responsibilities include actively involving in the process of governance. (Vanguard)
