Sokoto State government has assured its readiness to ensure the successful implementation of Open Government Process.
The Permanent secretary, ministry of information and orientation, Ibrahim Mohammed, gave this assurance during a two day workshop organised by the USAID State2State in Sokoto.
He assured that the ministry is ready to ensure the success of the implementation of OGP in the state.
He described the OGP as an international commitment which the state government has signed into to provide open access to government activities programmes and budgets.
“It is simply about openness, accountability and prudence in the management of resources.
“If we talk of openness or open access to information, there is no better way to have it than to have to partner with the ministry of information and orientation.
“This is because it is the ministry responsible for delivering information to the general public. The OGP will enable us to publicise some of the achievements of the state government.
“Since the commitment is about openness, we are in every inch, and ready to give the people of the state ready information about the performance and activities of the government.
“State2State has partnered with the state government on OGP and it is common knowledge that OGP has been signed by a number of states, we have OGP local and OGP global.
“We have signed into OGP local, and this first step of engagement, we will go to stage two where we will develop the contents of what we intend to achieve in terms of open and fiscal responsibility, issues regarding budget transparency and citizens engagement.
“Our role in the ministry is to let the public know the role of OGP, how they can key into it partners into open budget processes so that people in the community will have their priority incorporated in the budget and the OGP will do follow up and see if government fulfil their promise”.
The two days workshop which was held at Soulcare hotels saw participants drawn from the ministry of information, justice, private sector, civil society organisation among other stakeholders.
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