Ekiti State Commissioner for Local Government Affairs, Professor Adio Folayan has charged council administrators in the state to make the budget and budgeting process more transparent, accountable and implementable towards addressing the needs of the people at the grassroots.
Professor Folayan gave the charge in Ado-Ekiti while declaring open a workshop on the review of the Local Government 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) documents.
The Commissioner observed that the MTEF documents have now been widely accepted as the most appropriate framework for strategic expenditure and therefore called for consultations and engagement in designing budgets at the grassroots.
According to him, the MTEF is now more imperative due to the fact that the implementation of the year 2020 budget was first threatened by the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 before the curve began to flatten.
He added that the present situation of the pandemic requires ingenuity in budget preparation and implementation, thus available funds must be judiciously used to cater for the most pressing needs of the people.
Professor Folayan remarked that the success of the workshop would be measured by the quality of the 2021 budget prepared by each council and urged them to take the workshop seriously.
He charged council officials to embed new initiatives in 2020-2022 MTEF documents so as to promote the welfare of the people in line with the vision and mission of the Dr Kayode Fayemi administration.
In his address, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government, Engr Sunday Komolafe said the workshop was organised to review the local government 2020 – 2022 MTEF documents in readiness for preparation of the 2021 budget at the local government level.
He expressed hope that the 2021 budget would transform the social-economic activities of the various communities in Ekiti State for the better.
