By Udeme Hosea

A two day Coordination meeting of USAID State2State  and  Akwa Ibom State Civil Society  Organizations (CSOs)  in  Public Finance Management and service delivery sectors of Basic Education, Primary Health and WASH to review the first quarter implementation  has ended  in Uyo, with follow up action plans on monitoring the implementation of 2024 Community Charter of Demands  (CCD) in the state budget.

The second quarterly coordination  meeting which reviewed 2024 first quarter state budget performance in the focal sectors,  took place at Havilah Towers Hotel, Uyo from 27th – 28th May 2024.

In his welcome remarks, the State Team Lead (STL), Mr. Borve  Paago-Imabel commended Civil Society  Organizations (CSOs) for  advocacy on the implementation of government budget  and informed agitations with data in the minds of the state managers .

Mr. Borve  Paago-Imabel, USAID State Team Lead

 Paago-Imabel  hinted that  the objective  of the meeting is to review implementation of citizen nominated projects in the state and Local Government  2024  budgets and progress of CSOs’ action plans for the last quarter. He announced that, impact of the agitations has been felt by the key actors.

In his review of conflict issues in the second quarter, the Conflict Specialist, Mr Cosmos Dinee, while facilitating the technical session highlighted communal clash in Ibeno/ Eket occasioned by remapping, cult clash around Urua Ekpa road and the kidnapped of the Paramount  Ruler of Mbo local government area amongst others.

Participants at the CSOs’ Coordination Meeting

Also, Mr  Ekemini Simon in his 2022 review of Citizen Accountability Report, noted that the recurrent expenditure of the Akwa Ibom State Government in 2022 was greater than the state revenue. He mentioned Ring road 3, Airport road to Airport gate, Aka road -ring road 2, AKROIMA, Mbiatok /Ekit Itam road as part of the 10 largest projects of the state government as at then.

 Meanwhile, CSOs recommended action plans for the next quarter to include embarking  on advocacy visit to relevant MDAs on low capital releases to service delivery sectors in the first  quarter,  request for specific projects implemented with funds released to Ministry of Education and Ministry of Water Resources in the first quarter,  advocate for  update of the social register used for government’s social protection investments to ensure the right persons such as  the vulnerable, elderly, PWDs are the beneficiaries.

Participants

The  CSOs’  also agreed  to follow up on implementation of Community Charter of Demands (CCD) Projects captured in 2024 budget and  advocacy visit  to the state Auditor General’s office on  observations from the Citizens Accountability Report (2022) amongst  others.