By Emman Ovuakporie Johnbosco Agbarakwu

ABUJA—CRITICAL stakeholders in the budget formulation process have suggested public hearings, expenditure tracking and other vital components as a panacea to the budgetary process system in Nigeria.

Also, subjecting the budget process in the National Assembly to public hearings to provide for an inclusive multi-stakeholder involvement has been identified as one of the key solutions to reforming the country’s public finance and ensure equitable nationwide development.

In a similar manner, upscaling transparency and accountability through workable budget tracking measures which involve citizens at all levels, has also been listed as a major step in making the annual budget work in the public interest.

These recommendations were part of a 12-point communique raised from the OrderPaper.ng Colloquium on Budgetary Reforms held on September 26, in Abuja and attended by gladiators from the National Assembly, the executive, civil society, media, development partners, and other critical stakeholders.

The communique which was endorsed by Oke Epia, Publisher of OrderPaper.ng; Anthony Ubani, Moderator of the Technical Panel; and Chido Onumah, head of the team of rapporteurs for the colloquium, harped on timeliness of budget presentation and stressed that “the executive and legislature should adopt a more participatory budgeting process by widely consulting with the citizens and other stakeholders through public hearings.”

Other resolutions reached at the meeting include: “That a formal forum for pre-budget consultations and liaison between the legislature and the executive should be created in order to reduce instances of disagreements and bickering between the two arms upon presentation of the Appropriation bill, passage and subsequent implementation.”