The Rivers State chapter of All Progressives Congress has stated the state governor, Chief Nyesom Wike over the state’s appropriation bill presented to the state House of Assembly on Thursday.
In a release signed by the Publicity Secretary of the party in the State, Chris Finebone, the party condemned the fanfare that accompanied the presentation of the budget.
The party also challenged the governor to make public the implementation records of the past budgets.
The statement reads in part “Again, the Rivers State governor, Barr. Nyesom Wike has presented a budget of N510 billion to the Rivers State House of Assembly Thursday with the usual fanfare. Expectedly, so he did for 2016 and 2017. However, presentation of the budget proposals remains the last Rivers citizens see of their actual budgets thereafter. All attempts to compel the governor to make public the final appropriation laws (budgets) have met the brick wall. This is at variance with what obtains in all other states of Nigeria and the federal government where budgets are easily placed in the public domain for everyone to access at will.
“The Rivers State Chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, will not accept a repeat of what happened in the past two years where the governor vehemently refused to make public the state’s budgets. We are pleased to know that a coalition of civil society groups is already in court to compel the Rivers State governor to make public the previous state’s budgets.
“As a party, we will not refrain from lending a strong voice to the clamour to give the public access to the state’s budgets.”
The party concluded by asking Wike to follow the footsteps of former governor of the state and Minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi in the running of the state.”