The group also noted that the time has come when concerned citizens need to approach the Supreme Court for an interpretation of the powers of the National Assembly to alter the appropriation bill submitted to it by the executive arm for consideration and approval.

The Non-state Actor Co-chair, Dr Tayo Aduloju, made this call at an interactive session with the media, as part of activities lined up to mark the OGP week in Abuja, over the weekend.

He said that it is time for citizens to participate actively at every level of the budgeting process, including when it is transmitted to the National Assembly for their input.

“Citizens are often shot out completely from participating in the process at the National Assembly level and that explains why the Appropriation Act is usually distorted and unimplementable when it comes out from National Assembly,” he said.

He noted that the fundamental essence of the OGP week was to demonstrate the co-creation principle of OGP.

Aduloju said when the collective capacity of government, private sector, and civil society are mobilised to energise citizens to participate in governance, the transformation could be seen and felt.

He noted that the key lesson for Nigerians are that if they want a different country they don’t sit outside complaining, they should get involved to change things that are the opportunity that OGP is offering them.

The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning and Public Sector Co-chair, OGP Nigeria, Prince Clem Ikenade Agba said that the insertion of new projects into the budget by the National Assembly under the guise of constituency projects slows the implementation of the annual budget and lays the foundation for abandon projects.

Prince Agba who said this while responding to a question on the padding of the budget by the National Assembly, told the press to look away from budget padding and focus on the real issue, which, according to him, is the insertion of new projects that were not planned for by the executing arm of government in the said fiscal year.

“What insertion of new projects by the National Assembly does to the annul budget is that it increases the figures and reduces the amount allocated to critical projects to accommodate the new insertions. And the implication of that is that, since the contractors now monitor the budgeting process, they will know the amount allocated to the projects they are handling and therefore will not invest more than the allocated amount. Other implications are that the cost of the project will increase as it cannot be completed on schedule and the value of things is going up. Thirdly it leads to abandoned and uncompleted projects here and there”.

The Minister, also explained that the OGP week is an annual event set aside by the OGP Global Secretariat to celebrate the wins of the initiative across the world.

He said that the OGP was a global multilateral forum consisting of 78 countries and 76 sub nationals, who committed to various transparency and accountability reforms for improved service delivery of its citizenry.

He recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari signed into the initiative in 2016 in his desire to stamp out corruption.

He concluded that after joining the OGP,  Nigeria developed the first and second National Action Plans around four thematic areas of fiscal transparency, access to information, anti-corruption, citizens and citizens and engagement.