By Joy Gadani
The Deputy Director Budget in the Kaduna State Planning and Budget commission, Malam Suleiman Idris has called on the media to develop a common platform and approach that will ease obtaining information and data from government officials.
This he said could be through creation of common meeting platform with relevant officers and other stakeholders.
The Deputy Director was speaking at a two-day workshop for journalists on budget monitoring analysis, and score card system, organised by the Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI), aimed at strengthening capacity of members of Child Spacing Media Forum for sustainable budget analysis, monitoring, performance and reporting.
He said it was important for media to create positive relationship with public office holders for them to obtain credible information and hold such officers to account.
“Not only House of Assembly Members can engage in oversight functions in finding out if budgets are audited annually or not. What you need to do, is to start engaging with officers, you need to create a positive relationship with them, even before the time you need to get information required.
“There is need to develop a relationship before seeking information. You can go and get it administratively, but whoever you walk into his office to request such information, would think you are trying to witch-hunt him. This is because the system has not been working for decades,” he said.
Speaking on the objectives of the training, Executive Director of Africa Media Development Foundation (AMDF), Mr. Iliya Kure, said the training was meant to strengthen capacity of participants on sustainable budget analysis, monitoring, performance, and reporting.
He said it was also to help participating journalists develop skills on how to direct questions to appropriate individual(s) when following up on budgets stories.
“As journalists, we must develop our capacities and understand how the system works, knowing where to go, to obtain what?
According to him, over the years, NURHI has built the capacity of journalists on family planning advocacy and systems support involving both traditional and new media, adding that in its last leg of intervention, NURHI was interested in strengthening capacity of journalists on budget analysis, monitoring, performance and reporting, to support optimisation of media policy dialogue and advocacy for improved family planning resource mobilisation.”
In a remark, the State Team Leader of NURHI in Kaduna, Mal. Kabir Mohammed Abdullahi, tasked participants to use the knowledge acquired in all trainings organised by the organisation for the betterment of humanity.
“If you are to assess yourselves, would you say you have done well? The question we need to ask ourselves today is how have I impacted on humanity?” He said.
He said by their constitutional role Journalists have been bestowed with the right bringing things to the front burner and ensuring government is held accountable.
Speaking on budget, Mr. Abdullahi said, “We have moved from just reporting health, but to a deeper knowledge. Once you understand budget, you understand how it works, government constraints and you will be more targeted on how you write.
He said that the media and civil society has a role to play in ensuring government is effective, efficient and less wasting.
“We are here today to do a budget training, share knowledge and appreciate ourselves.
“But beyond that some of us have gone ahead, now you have a media forum, but sometimes I ask myself, has the media forum achieved its aim? is it sustainable? do you still have the passion? what have you been able to do with the knowledge you have gained?” He queried.
