ASABA/Nigeria: Delta State Economic Literacy and Budget Accountability for Governance (DELBAG), has raised concern over the dwindling budgetary allocation of Delta state to the agriculture sector over the years.
This was made known to the Delta state government recently when members of DELBAG visited the office of the state Commissioner of Economic Planning, Dr. Kingsley Emu, to present a report on a detailed analysis of the budgets of Delta state over a period of five years (2013-2018).
Mr. Lucky Enegide, while presenting the report to the Director of Budgets, Mr. Onyebuke M. O, who represented the Commissioner for Economic Planning, said the report revealed that less than 1% of the state’s budget is allocated to agriculture for the 2018 fiscal year. Noting that the development falls short of the Maputo declaration which advocates the allocation of 10 per cent of total budget to agriculture.
He also noted that the budgetary allocation to agriculture in the past five (5) years (2013-2018) had maintained a downward trend at a time the government is talking so much about diversification of the economy.
Continuing, Mr. Lucky said that the detailed report on the Delta state budgets is an annual exercise undertaken by DELBAG to determine the direction Delta state government’s economic policies are heading with regard to increasing productivity in the agriculture sector. Mr. Lucky called on Delta state government to give attention to the DELBAG report and implement its recommendations to the letter.
In his response, Mr. Onyebuke commended DELBAG for playing a crucial role in ensuring that the agriculture sector of the state’s economy is allocated adequate funds to make it viable in line with the state’s economic blue print of building capacity in non-oil sectors of the economy.
Adding, Mr. Onyebuke said that in recent years, Delta state government had given room for citizens participation in budgeting, stating that the contributions of the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) had been remarkable in that regard.
He assured the members of DELBAG that the report will be delivered to the commissioner of Economic Planning, Dr. Kingsley Ebu, saying that an interface between the state government and DELBAG would be enabled to drive the latter’s economic policies on a progressive note.
