The Director of the Department, Mr Benny Ubi, gave a breakdown of budget performance between January and June 2025 …
By TheInvestigator
The Cross River State Government has commenced its citizens’ engagement on the 2026 budget with a town hall meeting held at the Ogoja Council Hall on Tuesday, where residents raised a wide range of concerns and community needs.
Declaring the session open, the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Budget, Monitoring and Evaluation, Dr Peter Ukulala, urged participants to openly present the demands of their communities for possible inclusion in the forthcoming fiscal plan. He also encouraged citizens to interrogate the performance of the 2025 budget to date.
The Director of the Department, Mr Benny Ubi, gave a breakdown of budget performance between January and June 2025, noting that capital expenditures had so far gulped ₦30 billion. He highlighted visible projects executed during the period, including the construction of the Ndok Junction Road, the purchase of a coastal bus for the College of Nursing and Midwifery, the payment of counterpart funding, and rural electrification schemes.
During the question-and-answer session, participants raised pressing concerns ranging from unpaid entitlements and stagnation in civil service promotions to poor electricity supply and unemployment.
The meeting also featured group sessions for youths, women, men, students, and persons with disabilities. Each group documented its priority needs with the hope that they would be reflected in the state’s 2026 budget.
The Ogoja forum is part of a series of zonal consultations aimed at deepening participatory budgeting in Cross River State, providing citizens with the opportunity to shape government spending priorities.
