Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have faulted the zero allocation to agriculture in the current budget of Anambra State, as opposed to billions of naira provided for capital expenditure in the Ministry of Works.                         

This was part of outcomes of budget performance tracked by “Implementing Partners in the Strengthening Partnership for Accountability Result and Knowledge,” such as Civil Rights Concern (CRC), Justice and Peace Caritas (JDPC), Social and Integrated Centre (SIDEC) and Community Empowerment Network (CEN) and supported by International Budget Partnership.

In ranking of funding priorities, the Ministry of Works ranked first, as most prioritised government organisation and most funded, followed by reform of government and governance. Health sector is in the third position followed by education. The representatives of CSOs regretted that the tradition of zero allocation in capital expenditure to agriculture sector, which supports strong health has been on for about two years now.                    

According to them, there is an urgent attention required in the purchase of testing equipment for testing agricultural commodities to check the abuses in the use of dangerous chemical in food preservation.   
   
In addition, they condemned the issue of adding dye to red palm oil to make it look very bright.  These allegations, the CSOs claim, should be enough reason to release money for the purchase of the testing equipment. 
 
They stakeholders recommended that quick attention should be given to the purchase of testing equipment and funding of agriculture capital expenditures to reduce such abuses and improved food production.    

They equally lauded the state’s implementation of this year’s budget with the result of generating N44.4b revenue internally in both the first and second quarters of the fiscal year. The sum of N14.4b was generated internally in the first quarter, while N30b was earned in the second quarter of the year, totaling N44.4b so far. The zero implementation of primary healthcare capital expenditure budgets has been a challenge in primary healthcare, coupled with issues of poor budget descriptions of activity titles which  may have largely contributed to none prioritsation and funding of the budget items.                               

The total health sector budget is N75, 290,245,798.28; this is 9.82 per cent of the total state budget. In Q1, 2.6 per cent of the budget was funded amounting to N1, 954,749,512.23. At end of Q2, the sum of N12, 080,440,134.04 was provided for health sector capital items adding up to N14, 035,189,646.27 in two quarters. This is 18.6 per cent of the approved capital expenditure. 

Given the budget size, the sum of N18.8b is expected to be spent per quarter; and by Q2, N37.645b performance would be made. The shortfall in the 50 per cent expected spend in Q2 is 31.4 per cent, this shortfall may have caused none implementation of some critical services. 

It is equally noted that the implementation of these items were undertaken by the ministry and not the primary healthcare agency. 
 
Stakeholders thus agreed that the activity titles should be more specific with regard to numbers and locations of activity to provide better understanding so that the approval authorities will respond to them positively. Some of the budget lines reviewed did not provide any clarity in respect of what would be done and the number of items needed. 

Speaking to newsmen on the sidelines of the event, the Executive Director of CRC, Okechukwu Onyeka, observed that the gathering was aimed at knowing government’s priorities and type of responsibilities stakeholders have.