Kaduna Govt Consults Citizens On 2020-2022 State Expenditures

The Kaduna State govern-ment and its citizens yesterday met to review the state’s 2020-2022 medium term expenditure framework (MTEF).
MTEF is a tool for planning government revenue and expenditures for more than a year (usually three years) before preparing the budget. This is important to citizens because it will help government plan a realistic budget in order to realistically implement what government promised them.
The key determinants are the growth rate of the economy, inflation, internally generated revenue, exchange rate and oil bench mark.
Speaking during the citizen consultation programme organised by Kaduna State planning and budget commissions, supported by a non governmental organisation known as Partnership to Engage, Learn and Reform (PERL), Chairman, Open Government Partnership (OGP), Citizens arm, Mallam Mustapha Jumare, said that since government represented the mass of citizens, it was important for the people to have their say with regards to how their common resources were being expended by those they had entrusted with their mandate.
“So, since budget is the major way through which these resources are being expended, it is good for the citizens and government to engage this important document for preparation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation – first with the MTEF.
“We have seen a lot of interest on the side of CS. We have impressive turnout when compared with what we had last year when we started this engagement. I’m also learning a lot of new things with regard to budget,” he said.
Principal Budget Officer, Budget Department, Kaduna State Planning and Budget Commission, Linda Yakubu, said, “we are here to engage the citizens on budget process and MTEF is the first step in budget process. We have come with a draft document that we want to engage citizens with, get their input and to let them know how important the MTEF is in budget processes.