Policy Alert Holds 2-Day Workshop for Non-State Actors on Open Government in Akwa Ibom
By Imo Etim
The skills of non-state actors in Akwa Ibom State have been sharpened on how to partner with the government to foster transparency, integrity, accountability, and stakeholders participation in government business.
The training was held during a 2-day capacity building workshop for non-state actors on Open Government Partnership (OGP) and strategy engagement in Uyo from November 17-18, 2022.
In his remarks, Tijah Bolton-Akpan, Executive Director of Policy Alert called on citizens and civil society organizations to utilise data made available to the public to ask relevant questions and demand more accountability from the government.
Mr. Bolton-Akpan said that because governments make money from incentives of publishing data online, they seem unperturbed uploading these data online knowing that most citizens do not pay attention to these data to spot irregularities and demand more accountability.
He said: “Because of certain donor-driven reforms the government is involved with and the money they are getting, they cannot help pushing out their data online. However, they also know that most citizens are not prying into the data, so they have an incentive for putting them online without living up to what they are publishing. Despite the loads of data we have to use in asking relevant questions, the citizens allow them to go scot-free even when there are red flags because we are not investigating the data thus making them accountable.”
Mr Bolton-Akpan said it was important for non-state actors to encourage the government of Akwa Ibom State to sign on to the OGP by highlighting the gains already made and the benefits that will come in the future.
Mr. Koko Udo, while speaking on the introduction of OGP, role and responsibilities of key actors and Stakeholders, pointed out that the OGP has been signed up by 77 countries, 106 local governments, representing more than 2 billion people and thousands of CSOs, with Nigeria joining in 2016. He said the numbers keep increasing due to the importance it offers to a society. `
He also stated the OGP is a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create an action plan in a bid to make government more inclusive, responsive and accountable, and that it was a voluntary action.
Ekemini Simon, a fiscal researcher and journalist, pointed out that one of the challenges encountered by civil society organisations (CSOs) was low access to information which hinders most CSOs from effectively carrying out their jobs.
He noted that despite the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, the window of information opened to the public was still marginally low, making it cumbersome for the right information and follow ups to be achieved.
Mr Simon also presented participants with infographics depicting the yearly fiscal presentation of the government and how they intend to impact the people.
Mr Mfon Gabriel leading the participants in a group work, highlighted some of the bottlenecks encountered by CSOs in holding government more accountable to include; vaguely produced templates on fiscal policies and budgets, government seeming more involved in the incentives than in accountability, gross disregards to FOIA, and weak advocacy around asset declaration. He equally showed how non-state actors can live above the challenges.
Mr Faith Paulinus took participants on Opening Locally: Rationale for National OGP implementation and Mr Harry Udo exposed participants on Advocacy and the tools required to achieve effective results.