Tax Justice Trains CSOs, Community Reps on Budget Monitoring to Deepen Accountability

By Mustapha Salisu

In a bid to enhance community participation in budget monitoring and promote accountability in governance, the Tax Justice and Governance Platform in Kano has organized a 2-day capacity-building training for community representatives and civil society organizations across the state.

The program, which held between Tuesday and Wednesday in Mambayya House Kano, brought together participants from various local government areas, representatives of civil society groups, and officials from relevant government agencies to undergo a Training of Trainers on budget education and revenue tracking.

Speaking at the event, the Program Lead of the Tax Justice and Governance Platform, Sadiq Muhammad Mustapha, said the initiative was born out of a need to empower communities to take an active role in monitoring how public funds are allocated and utilized.

“At this stage, we began to think outside the box: what can we do to empower the community to monitor spending themselves? That’s how we came up with the concept of training them on budget education,” he said.

According to Mustapha, the training aims to equip participants with the knowledge of how the budgeting process works from formulation to approval and implementation and introduce them to tools that can help track budgetary allocations and service delivery at the grassroots.

“One of the biggest challenges is that civil society organizations tend to focus only on the formulation and approval stages of the budget, while ignoring the implementation phase. But that’s the most critical point because that’s when the money has been released. Monitoring the execution is key to ensuring that projects are delivered as promised,” he added.

He emphasized the need to bridge the existing knowledge gap among CSOs, saying, “Many organizations lack the capacity to monitor budget implementation effectively. This training is designed to strengthen that capacity and encourage communities to demand accountability.”

Also speaking at the event, Garba Bello, a representative from the Ministry for Local Government and Community Development, highlighted the importance of collaboration between government and civil society.

“Collaboration brings progress and better service delivery. The government cannot see everything. Sometimes, it’s the people who live in these communities know what they need most. CSOs must understand that participating in governance is not a matter of policy alone, but a duty to support the government in identifying and addressing gaps,” he said.

He urged civil society organizations not actively engaged in budget monitoring to wake up and realize their roles in ensuring transparency and accountability at the local level.

Participants who spoke to PRIME TIME NEWS include, Madam Grace Musa, Deputy State Director of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Kano, who represent the State Director, described the initiative as timely and impactful.

“This program is a welcome development. We plan to cascade the knowledge gained here to our colleagues across the 44 local government areas so they can serve as watchdogs for tax justice and help ensure public funds are used for the benefit of the people,” she said.