*Says there’s need to revise Kaduna’s budget
By JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
Harping on the statistics that puts about 8.4m people are multi dimensionally poor in Kaduna State, the need to adopt sustainable measures in fighting poverty has been brought to the fore.
Presenting a paper titled, “Overview of CS-Legislature Engagement & Accountability Platform (CLEAP), at the opening of a two-day Technical Session On Strengthening Social Accountability Through Performance Audit In Kaduna State yesterday in Zaria, CLEAP’s Yusuf Ishaku Goje said that there is need to fashion out measures that will better address poverty, instead of handing out of palliatives.
According to him, out of the 8.4m multi dimensionally poor in Kaduna State, Kaduna North bears the highest burden of 3.8 million persons, Kaduna South follows with 2.6 million, while Kaduna Central has 1.5 million poor people, who cannot access social services like health.
“These are questions we need to look at. How has building roads reduced unemployment. How has government building hospitals affected healthcare.
“The 2023 Kadunà Budget should be revised. About 700m was voted for agriculture, while more than that amount, about N800m was captured for citizens engagement.
“If you give a farmer rice or garri and he has 15 children, how will he survive,” he queried.
Goje explained that there is urgent need to change the trajectory to prevent youth from resulting into means that may not be lawful, in a bid to survive.
“If enabling environment not created for this generation to show there is a future for them, they may become violent. What happened during looting of palliatives, would be small compared to what is possible,” he warned.
The two-day session, which is organised by the Partnership to Engage, Reform & Learn (PERL-ECP), supporting CS-Legislature Engagement & Accountability Platform (CLEAP) targets multi-stakeholders’ technical session to brainstorm and develop a community engagement framework for the performance audit process towards effective social accountability.
