Seyi Makinde, the Oyo State Government will, on Wednesday, kickstart the sixth consultative engagement with stakeholders across the state, with a view of producing a people-oriented 2025 budget.

Musbau Babatunde, the Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, revealed this in a statement made available to newsmen by Sulaimon Olanrewaju, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media, in Ibadan, on Monday.

In line with its tradition of engaging residents of Oyo State to seek their input in the preparation of the state’s annual budgets.

Babatunde said the annual stakeholders’ engagement would begin at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan, with subsequent town hall meetings to be held across the seven zones of the state.

He said the meeting, the sixth in the series of town hall meetings, organised by the state since the inception of Governor Makinde’s administration in 2019, was designed to engage the citizenry in the preparation and implementation of the state’s annual budget for 2025.

“This year’s engagement is set to redefine the governance initiative of this administration. This programme is designed to align the state with the world’s best practices in the preparation of annual budgets, which support an all-inclusive and open approach to governance, rather than the top-to-bottom approach.

“The objectives of this approach are; to restructure our processes to establish a solid base for our development aspirations.

“The restructuring is still ongoing and will extend to all facets of state development and to prevent the state from overdependence on federal allocation, by increasing the state Internally Generated Revenue and make our budget as realistic and as achievable as possible,” he said.

The commissioner added that the meeting would also strengthen the bond between the government and the people.

“Apart from ensuring that resource allocations are geared towards impactful projects and programme implementation to improve the welfare of the citizenry, this year’s town hall meeting will also seek to build people’s confidence in government,” Babatunde said.