NEYIF, CITAD Hold Social Accountability Meeting in Yobe

By Musa M. Buba Damaturu.

A one-day stakeholders’ meeting organised by non-governmental organisation, North East Youth Initiatives for Development (NEYIF), in collaboration with the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), has ended in Damaturu with a call on the government to enact law for wider sensitisation of public on budgetary processes in Yobe state.

NEYIF’s Executive Director, Dauda Mohammed Gombe, said “the meeting is aimed at engaging stakeholders in promoting social accountability in the education sector in the Northeastern Nigeria.”

“Yobe is one of the backward states educationally in the country and recently has engaged on developmental projects, with the establishment of Bureau for Public Procurement in order to get value of money spent,” he said.

Gombe lamented the establishment of the Bureau for Public Procurement had reduced almost 50 percentage of their responsibilities, and called for capacity building of the newly appointed procurement officers that had less knowledge on budgetary process.

Earlier, the Senior Programme Officer of the CITAD, Isa Garba, said for the public procurement board to “work effectively and efficiently, there is need to bring stakeholders in a round table for transparency and accountability to be able to key in observations or proffer solution to challenges being faced.”

Our correspondent reports that the meeting drew participants from civil society organisations, media and stakeholders.