By Marilyn King
FREETOWN, June 3 (232news.com) – The Budget Advocacy Network (BAN) on Wednesday 31st May 2022 launched the Open Budget Survey at the CCSL Hall in Freetown.
In his Presentation of the Open Budget Survey (OBS) Report for 2021, the Coordinator of Budget Advocacy Network, Abu Bakarr Kamara, said this part of the OBS measures public access to information on how the central Government raises and spends public resources. He continued that it assesses the online availability, timeliness, and comprehensiveness of eight key budget documents using 109 equally weighted indicators and scores each country on a scale of 0 to 100. He stated that a transparency score of 61 or above indicates that a country is likely publishing enough material to support informed public debates on the budget.
He maintained that Sierra Leone has a transparency score of 45 out of 100. He also gave down the Transparency in Sierra Leone compared to others, and the Global Average is 45: Sierra Leone 45, Ghana 45, Liberia 45, Nigeria 45, Gambia 35, São Tomé e Principe 31, Equatorial Guinea 0. He continued that Sierra Leone’s transparency score of 45 in the OBS 2021 is moderately higher than its score in 2019.
He stated that the 2016 public financial Management Act mandates that the ministry of finance organize open bilateral discussions with various stakeholders during budget formulation. He furthered that Sierra Leone’s Parliament has established public hearings related to the review of the Audit Report. He also said Audit Service Sierra Leone has established mechanisms to assist the supreme audit institution in developing its audit program and it should prioritize the following actions to improve public participation in the budget process, and also establish formal mechanisms for the public to contribute to relevant audit investigations.
He maintained that Sierra Leone’s parliament has a weak oversight during the planning stage of the budget cycle and weak oversight during implementation stage. He concluded that the legislature should debate budget policy before the Executive’s Budget Proposal is tabled and approve recommendations for the upcoming budget.
The Deputy Director, Budget of Ministry of Finance, Dr Lara Mahdi said the ministry of finance is committed to work with the Budget Advocacy Network. She continued that they have also examined the report regarding the areas of transparency and they also believe it is a good start, and progress has been made compared to two years ago and among other countries. She continued that they will try and publish the budget in the internet as soon as possible. She noted that they will try to be ensure that more needs to be done.
The Deputy Auditor General of Audit Service Sierra Leone, Sinneh Kargbo, thanked BAN for inviting them to participate in the OBS, He also said they appreciated the work and the result he termed appreciable. He maintained that Audit Service Sierra Leone is the constitutional body that is mandated to Audit all institutions and funds of the government. He furthered that they are also a member of umbrella body which is the international organization of supreme Audit institutions.
When reading out the Press Release, the Governance Policy Analyst of BAN, AbubakarrTawarrally, said the OBS is the world’s only comparative, independent and regular assessment of Transparency, oversight and public participation in public budgets in 120 countries. He said Sierra Leone’s transparency score increased from 39 out of 100 in 2019 to 45 out of 100 in 2021, which is the global average score. He continued that citizens still have limited access to the information and that they need to participate in decision making and hold the government to account. The publication of the citizens budget in a timely manner, he said contributed to the slight improvement in the transparency scores. He furthered that Budget oversight also slightly improved from 42 out of 100, more importantly, Sierra Leone public participation 31 out of 100 is more than two folds the global average of 14 out of 100.
