HURIDE criticises southeast govs for poor budget implementation

The rights group, Human Right, Liberty Access and Peace Defenders Foundation (HURIDE) has accused the south eastern governors of abysmal implementation of annual budget.

He said the poor performance was due to lack of purposeful governance in the region.

Chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT) of the group, Dede Uzor Uzor,on Friday in Onitsha, Anambra state called on South East governors to set up budget portals to enable citizens monitor the implementation of budgets in their respective states.

According to him, governors from the zone have performed poorly in budget implementation over the years.

He stated that the ugly trend was due to the prevalent of poor governance culture in the zone.

Uzor also stated that very soon, the group would expose them.

“There has been consistent poor implementation of budget in the zone to the extent that many projects were rolled over to the next budget for several years with full budgetary provision in each of those years.

“Apart from Ebonyi State under Governor David Umahi that had tried to implement its budget up to 50 percent, the rest South East States, Abia, Anambra, Imo and Enugu hardly go beyond 30 percent implementation of their budgetary provisions.

“This is the principal reason for infrastructural deficit and decay in the region especially road networks.”he said.

Citing the 2018 budget of Anambra Stste, which provided N40m for staff quarters for the State Polytechnic, Mgbakwu, but the project was yet to take off.

“There was another provision of N167m for the procurement of tractors for the Agricultural School of Vocational Training, Okija in Ihiala local government area of the state, but as at November 2019, the tractors have not been procured.

“The same thing is applicable in all other South East States of Enugu, Abia an Imo. Apart from Ebonyi, others merely achieve between 20 and 30 percent of their budgetary provisions with Imo State under Rochas Okorocha being the worst,” he added.

According to Uzor if the budget portals was created by respective state governments in the South East, it would assist citizens to asses and monitor government budget implementation.