Dutse, Sept. 19, 2025
Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Jigawa state, has organised a one-day townhall meeting in collaboration with Exceptional Leadership and Integrity Promotion Initiative (ELIP) a civil society organization, to collect inputs foe the 2026 budget.
ELIP specialises in engaging multi-sectoral stakeholder dialogues on governance and climate change.
Speaking at the Forum, the state Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning Mr Ibrahim Gantsa, explained the importance of the town hall meeting, saying that stakeholder inputs are vital.
Represented by Mr Basiru Nasoro, Director SDGs of the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the Commissioner tasked stakeholders on providing meaningful input.
In a presentation on the objectives of the meeting, Mr Najibullah Ahmad, a budget analyst from the Ministry said the aim objective is to collect the citizens input.
He explained that it is basically to engage citizens and trigger their participation while promoting accountability and transparency in the budget process.
According to Ahmed, “The meeting will also enable stakeholders to identify areas of priority and help the government in decision making, while providing an enabling environment for accountability.”
In addition, Mr Ahmad revealed that the meeting will also provide annual feedback on how public fund were and will be allocated to meet the public interest.
In another presentation, Mr Isa Mustapha staff of the Ministry, explained that the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, provides a holistic framework.
He explained that the framework aligns with government’s programs, donor support and the private sector Initiatives towards common goal.
Mustapha added that it emphasized inclusiveness, sustainability and efficiency in the use of the state resources, seeking to continously improve the socio-economic well being if the citizens.
On the Comprehensive Development Framework, Mustapha highlighted tgat it serves as a strategic plan to guide Jigawa State’s socio-economic transformation.
Mr Ayuba Doro, a representative of ELIP who made a presentation on the extracts from 2024 citizens nominated projects, analysing citizens inputs reflected in the 2025 budget.
According to him, “1105 inputs were submitted and 548 were reflected in the budget, which represents 49 per cent of the total inputs submitted.
“The inputs reflected, represented 26.8 per cent of the total capital budget of N175.442 billion of Jigawa state in 2025, which shows that citizens inputs was higher than that of 2023 in monetary terms,” he said,
Some of the challenges according to Doro, were poor project monitoring, rigidity and feat to dynamism, weak priotozation of resources as well as difficulty in balancing between needs and wants in a democratic space.
It was gathered that many civil society organisations and local governments gave various inputs at the townhall meeting which covered seven local governments of the state.
Aisha Ahmed ✍ from Dutse
1 Comment
Appreciate the good effort ELIP initiative