Revelation at PERL event: Kano captures 1,425 citizen projects in 2022 budget

By Muhammad HamisuAbdullahi&Na­siru Yusuf Tsakuwa

Kano State Government has captured 1,425 citizen-driven projects submit­ted during budget hearing in its 2022 appropriation.

The Programme Manager of Kano Budget Working Group, MalamAkibuHamisu re­vealed this on Tuesday during a validation of analysis of citizen input captured in the 2022 state budget organised by Partnership to En­gage, Reform and Learn (PEARL).

MalamHamisu said the group has con­ducted a town hall meeting in the 44 local government areas of the state.

He said about 2,250 citizens’ inputs have been collated out of which 1,425 have been captured in the state 2022 budget.

The Programme Manager said: “The total budget size of this year is about N221 billion, the capital expenditure is around N131 billion. Out of this capital expenditure, 33% is anal­ysed to be citizens nominated projects.”

“We want to create a culture where citizens’ projects are given the priority it deserves, so that in a long run, people would be much car­ried along on how government implements its programmes and activities.

In his remarks, the Director Budget in the state Ministry of Planning and Budget, MalamYakubuSabiuGarundanga, advised for identi­fying five major citizens’ projects in each min­istry for easy monitoring.

Earlier in his address, MalamYunusaHamza of PERL, said the meeting was to vali­date citizens analysis of inputs captured in the 2022 state budget.

MalamHamza added that part of the ob­jectives of the meeting was to reflect and share learning and experience from this year’s citi­zens input collation process; identify level of citizens’ input captured at the state House of Assembly post public hearing and also iden­tify challenges and resolutions on improving the process going forward.

The meeting was attended by government officials, journalists and civil society organi­sations.

The meeting was supported by PERL, a Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) initiative.

PERL is a public sector accountability and governance programme launched in 2016, as a politically smart and adaptive programme. It aims at improving collaboration between governments and citizens to tackle governance challenges and improve service delivery