USAID moves to improve education, other sectors in Ebonyi

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.

In an opening remark, the Ebonyi State2State Team Lead, Dr. Sam Onyia, represented by Mrs. Victoria Eze, said that the workshop would help in profiling the state budget for the year and equally prepare its cash plan. She maintained that poor performance of the budget emanated from non-balancing of the expenditure with the revenue adding that the workshop would help in planning against such as adequate considerations would be given to when and how funds are being allotted by the various ministries, departments and agencies.

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 who's also 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 the State. Also, in 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. Reacting, some 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 would 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 thanked State2State for the privilege and assured that lessons learnt in the workshop would help considerably in the dispatch of their duties.