Ebonyi: USAID State2State Drills Education Sector On Budget Preparation

From Mba Nnenna- Abakaliki

The USAID Nigeria State Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness (State2State) Activity has organized a 4-day workshop for Ebonyi State’s Education Sector on the preparation of the 2024 Budget profile and cash plan.

The Ebonyi State Team Lead, Dr. Sam Onyia, represented by Mrs Victoria Eze, in an opening remark explained that the workshop will help in profiling the state budget for the year, as well as prepare its cash plan.

She said that with the workshop, those abnormalities which occur in budget performance, as a result of imbalance in expenditure shall be tackled.

Declaring the workshop open, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Mrs. Mfon Williamson said that the State2State annual programmes in Ebonyi afford the Ministry the opportunity to plan well for the fiscal year through cash profiling.

Mrs. Mfon, who also oversees the Ministry of Budget, Planning, Research and Monitoring urged the participants to take the workshop serious as according to her “he who fails to plan, plans to fail”.

She revealed the core sectors that are being earmarked for the programme to include; Education, Health, Water and Sanitation.

The facilitator of the workshop (and the Public Financial Management Specialist of State2State in Ebonyi), Mr. Chibueze Nwonye took the participants through an overview of cash planning, current architecture and timelines for the preparation of cash plans in Ebonyi State, the provisions of the State’s Cash Management Strategy, consolidation of the education sector and MDAs’ expenditure profile, with hands-on sessions on various topics.

He opined that for a budget to yield high performance, the expenditure must go in tandem with the revenue and that any allotment of funds must go in line with the time it was needed.

Responding on behalf of the participants, Mrs. Ijeoma Okikechi Chima, a Deputy Director (Finance) Universal Basic Education Board and Mr. Kenneth Ekpa an Accountant in the Ministry of Education, admitted that the workshop will enhance their skills in subsequent budget preparation adding that the workshop has provided solutions to their difficulties in allotting money for projects and programmes.

They appreciated State2State for the privilege and assured that lessons learnt in the workshop will help considerably in the dispatch of the