The World Bank-sponsored State Employment and Expenditure for Result (SEEFOR) on Monday said it budgeted 70 million dollars (about N25bn) for its intervention in public works in youth engagements in Niger Delta States of Edo, Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers for 2019.
Task Team Leader of the SEEFOR in Nigeria, Parminder Barr, said this at the opening session of a four-day interaction among the four states on Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) in Benin.
He said out of the amount, Edo would get 18.2 million dollars (N6.5bn) for the year 2019.
According to Barr “The SEEFOR project will be spending about $1.5 million every month in Edo State and basically Edo has been doing well, this project covers public works next year.
“This project will support the employment of 9,000 young people in Edo for the next 12 months and we will be implementing almost 59 small projects.
“We are supporting the Technical and Vocational Education Training; we are supporting Benin Technical College and other institutions in Edo State and we are supporting public financial management.
“We have been supporting automation, the oracle implementation in Edo State and Edo State has been doing very well in oracle implementation although there are some things they need to do.”
He said the meeting among the four states was to share ideas and compare notes and strong and weak areas.
The project Coordinator in Edo, Toju Onaiwu, said SEEFOR would achieve 95 per cent disbursement of the funds in the state before the end of the year.
“We are fine tuning the system to make it function better and again with technology, we want to keep upgrading and have a robust SEEFOR system in place,” he said.
The Special Adviser on Budget to Governor Godwin Obaseki, Joseph Eboigbe, said the Obaseki administration had ensured continued improvement of his administration’s budgetary implementation and transparency in government.
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