In line with its tradition of engaging residents of Oyo State to seek their inputs in the preparation of the state’s annual budgets, the state government will, on Wednesday, kick-start the sixth consultative engagement with stakeholders across the state with a view to producing a people-oriented 2025 Budget.

The annual stakeholders’ engagement will begin at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan, with subsequent town hall meetings to be held across the seven zones of the state.

Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Prof. Musbau Babatunde, stated this at the weekend, noting that the meeting, which is the sixth in the series of the Town Hall meetings organised by the state since the inception of Governor Makinde’s administration in 2019, was “designed to engage the citizenry in the preparation and implementation of the state’s Annual Budget for the year 2025.”

He added that “this year’s engagement is set to redefine the governance initiative of this administration. This programme is designed to align the state with the world best practices in the preparation of annual budgets, which support an all-inclusive and open approach to governance, rather than the top to bottom approach.

“The objectives of this approach are; to restructure our processes to establish a solid base for our development aspirations. The restructuring is still ongoing and will extend to all facets of state development and to prevent the state from overdependence on federal allocation by increasing the state IGR and make our budget as realistic and as achievable as possible.”

The Professor of Economics added that the stakeholders’ meeting will also strengthen the bond between government and the people of the state by seeking their inputs into 2025 budget.

“Apart from ensuring that resource allocations are geared towards impactful projects and programmes implementation that will improve the welfare of the citizenry, this year Town Hall meeting will also seek to build people’s confidence in government.

“This engagement will improve the performance of the budget and sustain the developmental objectives of this administration,” Babatunde added

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