APC, group, task Rivers government on 2018 budget

The Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Integrity Group (IG) has tasked the Rivers State government to place the state’s 2018 proposed N510 billion budget in public space for assessment.

State APC Publicity Secretary, Chris Finebone, said all attempts to compel the State government to make public the final appropriation laws (budgets) since 2016 have met a brick wall, at variance with what obtains in all other states of Nigeria and the federal government where budgets are easily placed in the public domain for everyone to see.

He stressed that the APC will not accept a repeat of what happened in the past two years where the government vehemently refused to make public the state’s budgets. According to him, the APC was pleased to know that a coalition of civil society groups are already in court to compel the state to make public the previous state’s budgets.

Executive Director, The Integrity Group, Livingstone Wechie, said the budget speech presented by Governor Nyesom Wike on the floor of the Rivers state House of Assembly was a repetition of what was contained in his 2017 budget speech amongst other budget speeches capturing same projects. Wechie said some of the so-called ongoing projects such as the Amadi-Ama internal roads amongst several others could be completed easily within a budgetary year, but have been re-budgeted for without any explanation.