By Bitrus Osagie
Stakeholders have pledged to ensure sustainability of the USAID Nigeria State Accountability, Transparency, and Effectiveness (State2State) Activity being implemented in Adamawa State.
They made the pledge in separate interviews with journalists on Thursday, at the end of a three-day workshop tagged “Adamawa State Year Five Consultative Work Plan,” held in Gombe.
Dr. Mary Paninga, the Executive Secretary of Adamawa State Planning Commission said the impact of the project in enhancing governance, had made it imperative to sustain it.
According to Paninga, the USAID intervention had been instrumental in smoothening governance and enhancing better service delivery, hence, “it will not be good not to own the project after its expiration in 2025.
“With this workshop, there is assurance that every discussion made will be followed up and the sustainability of each and every of the platforms is being guaranteed.
“We will ensure that we monitor and ensure that everyone of these come to fruition, logical conclusion, bring up the output that Adamawa State and its citizens would benefit from,” she said.
The executive secretary commended USAID State2State for all the reforms that had been introduced towards ensuring transparency, accountability, and effectiveness towards strengthening governance systems in the state.
On his part, Mr Makallan Akila, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Adamawa State said the state’s budgeting processes had been greatly reformed and improved with the support of USAID State2State project.
Akila said there were many reforms that State2State brought to Adamawa State in so many ministries, departments, and agencies that have to do with accountability, transparency and effectiveness in governance.
He said plans were already on towards sustaining such reforms as State2State roll out in 2025.
“With the benefits of the State2State reforms, there is the willingness from stakeholders to sustain these reforms.
“State2State has built the capacity of staff in budget and planning ministry, and today, our staff can prepare Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and others.