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The Anambra State government has
commenced the process of formulating the state’s 2011 budget with a
workshop on data collection, presentation and analysis, organised
yesterday in Awka by the ministry of economic planning and budget.

The workshop, according to Vivian
Nwandu, the permanent secretary of the ministry, was necessitated by
the government’s plan to introduce what she called ‘organic budget law’.

The law, she explained, was a manual containing the process and procedure of planning the budget.

“In the past decade, planning
methodologies have continued to evolve and the awareness that planning
must be based on facts and figures has continued to increase,” Mrs
Nwandu said.

The state’s commissioner for economic
planning and budget, Chinyere Okunna, said the training was coming at a
time when many reforms in planning and budgeting were taking place at
both state and federal levels.

She, however, noted that there still
existed gaps in terms of knowledge and skills by staff of the ministry,
either because they had been newly posted or because they were yet to
completely settle down.

“This workshop provides an opportunity
for them to listen, learn and ask questions,” Mrs Okunna said, pointing
out that effective planning must be based on available statistical data
on which the state government’s programmes and projects had been based.

Current momentum

She said that for
the state government to sustain its current momentum in development, it
needed to plan effectively and that such planning must be executed by a
crop of knowledgeable and skilled planning officers and statisticians.

“We urge the
participants to take full advantage of the opportunity the workshop
offered to acquire useful knowledge and skills they would use to
enhance their performance,” Mrs Okunna said.

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