Some Journalists and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have pledged to track Gov. Nasir El-Rufai campaign promises and inaugural speech commitments as part of measures to push government to live up to its responsibilities.
The journalists made the commitment on Thursday, at the end of a two-day strategic media engagement to discuss campaign promises in the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event was supported by a DFID-funded Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL), was held in Kaduna.
Some of the governor’s promises included, ridding of Kaduna communities of strife, putting people first, universal health coverage, contributory health insurance scheme and transformation of supply chain in the state health sector.
Others were, six months maternity leave for working mothers, expansion of infrastructure to promote wellbeing of people and creating needed environment for people to take care of themselves.
El-Rufa’i had equally promised to invest on social housing projects for people to own houses, promote social integration, reduce wastage, fraud and cut cost in governance as well as upgrade primary schools among others.
The participants noted that the contributory health insurance scheme and circular for implementation of six months maternity leave had been put in place and the Phase II of Zaria Water work had been completed.
They commended the government for the creation of Ministry of Internal Security and Home Affairs, and Local Government Peace Committees to ensure peaceful co-existence in the state.
The participants, nonetheless, observed that media and CSOs have a role to play in ensuring that the governor fulfil his promises and provide quality services to the people.
Mr Yusuf Goje of the Coalition of Association for Leadership, Peace, Empowerment and Development, said that CSO and media would move away from tracking outputs to outcomes.
“We want to ensure that government projects executed meet the needs of the people and impact positively on the lives of particularly, the common people in the society,” he said.
Similarly, Mr Joshua James said that the group would put the state government on its toes to ensure fairness, equity and justice in the distribution of resources for development.
“We will equally track budget performance and the ongoing urban renewal projects,” James said.
Earlier, Mr Istifanus Akau of PERL, said that the objective of the meeting was to analyse the government commitments to strengthen citizens and media engagements to increase government responsiveness to the people.
“This will enable the stakeholders to effectively deploy tools for tracking, monitoring and reporting progress on commitments,” he said.
(NAN)
