Joseph Odok|12 May 2016|7:03am
One document that the government of Ayade is hiding from the people is the 2016 Appropriation Laq. I have made frantic efforts to access it but all efforts proves abortive. According to a legislator whose name will remain anonymous for security reasons and for reasons of maintaining trust, we the legislators never had a copy of the budget.
A commissioner told me that he only has figures for his ministry and have never seen a copy of the budget. Amongst my team of investigative journalism, no one seems to have got access to the budget. The closest gist I get about the budget is that the governor cloned the appropriation bill of Liyel Imoke and arbitrarily awarded some figures without preparing any budget. This information comes close to my suspicion that Mr Ayade was not prepared for governance. But why this cloning of important document? The practice of this government is to hide sensitive document from people even upon demand.
Many questions begs for answer because the budget is the most important document that gives direction to our crumbling economy. Should we keep quite in the face of the raping of our economy?
Why is the governor hiding the budget? Could the budget just be padded? Is there intention for fraud? How was the budget passed if copies were not made available to the legislators? Why are the legislators always acting in conspiracy with those that rape us?
The budget is an open document that should be made available to concerned citizens of Cross River. We must demand for it. The time is now. I challenge those in government to discredit my assumption by making the budget public just as we can see the national budget in pages of newspapers and social media.
Joseph Odok
Is a University Don & Social Media Change Agent
