The Delta Government, has directed its ministries, agencies and departments to submit their comprehensive work plans for the 2012 fiscal year.

The Commissioner for Economic Planning, Mr Kenneth Okpara, gave the directive last Tuesday in Asaba at a meeting with Commissioners, Permanent Secretaries and heads of agencies and departments in the state.

Okpara directed that the budgetary work plans should be divided into the four quarters of the year, adding that the state’s 2012 budget would be derived from the work plans.

He announced that beginning from January 2012, the MDAs would be required to give quarterly reports of physical progress of projects and other activities and financial report on each project.

The commissioner said that the method would enable the government to keep track of it projects and activities and be able to assess their performances.

Okpara advised the MDAs to make budgetary provisions for yearly maintenance and operations of infrastructure and projects requiring periodic maintenance.

He said that the procedures for the execution and monitoring of approved expenditure should also be clearly specified by each ministry or department.

The commissioner directed the ministries and the agencies to forward to his ministry, list of all uncompleted and ongoing projects, indicating their cost and current status.

“Heads of the ministries, agencies and departments should include budget performance of their projects and programmes from January to September, in the report they will send to us.” he said.

The commissioner advised the MDAs to ensure that they complied with the directive, and warned that their budget proposals for 2012 would not be considered if the requirements were not met.

In another development, USAID Community Support for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) is partnering with Nigeria Aids Counselling Organisation (NACO) to map out modalities to provide effective basic education for the children.

A statement by USAID Community Support for OVC project last Friday in Asaba, said that both organisations would hold a stakeholders workshop to explore the educational needs of the children.

It said that the workshop, which would be supported by the Delta Ministry of Women Affairs, would seek ways of providing holistic support for the children.

This it said, would be done through looking for ways to fund the education of OVC and to ensure that the children were successful in basic education.

It said that the workshop with the theme: “Developing Sustainable Education Strategies for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in Delta’’, would enable stakeholders to disseminate findings from the recent baseline research conducted in the state.

It said that the workshop would also review useful models and brainstorm on various strategies for education of OVC that would best suit the state.