By Ibrahim Joenal Sesay
FREETOWN, Sep. 6 (232News) – Budget Advocacy Network (BAN) Scorecard rated the Ministry of Finance (MoF) on the average.
This was made known during the launched of the scorecard on selected mandatory information disclosure as per the 2016 Public Financial Management Act and its 2018 regulations 2020-2021 documents held at the Harry Yansanneh Memorial Hall, SLAJ Headquarters in Freetown last Thursday 2nd September, 2021.
During the presentation on the overview of the scorecard, Abdulraman M. Sesay of BAN said the Ministry of Finance (MoF) is doing somehow well with 63% which he described as above the average but it is not a good percentage.
He pointed out that their lapses were because they failed to do and publish all their report on time which should have made them scored 70%.
Abu Bakarr Tarawally of BAN pointed out that the 2016 Public Financial Management (PFM) Act and its 2018 regulations make it mandatory for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to provide fiscal information to the public.
This, he continued, will enhance accountability and transparency in the governance cycle and it will put the country at a better place to be assessed in how far compliant they could be and how less and much the country should be to catch up with the rest of the world in fiscal transparency and accountability.
Against that backdrop, BAN has been regularly doing a constant follow-up with relevant government offices to be able to scale their compliance on these vital provisions.
The scorecard, he added serves to remind officials in the government of their obligations to comply with the laws at all time to be able to improve on Sierra Leone Open Budget Survey (OBS) scores going forward.
He disclosed that the scorecard looked at the first six months of 2021 compare to 2020; the scorecard was divided into two:
- Firstly- documents produced and published; documents produced but not published; and documents not produced at all for 2020-2021 fiscal year.
- The second aspect looked at whether or not fiscal documents/information produced were published on time as stipulated in the 2016 PFM Act and its 2018 Regulations.
“Key findings -Produced and published, produced and not published and not produced at all. Government is still not producing and publishing 23% of the documents it stated in the 2016 PFM Act and its 2018 regulations. 24% of the documents produced are not published and 53% produced and published”, the scorecard stated.
Chinsia Pascho-George Senior Program Officer, Christian Aid, said BAN got 5 years support under the Irish Aid Programme Grant (IAPG) Project with support from Christian Aid Sierra Leone and the Irish Aid Program focus on governance thematic area which is one of the objectives of the grant.
She pointed out that they have been supporting BAN on human rights and Gender Equality.
“The human right looks at governance from the perspective of systems and structure that are in place to ensure efficiency in the delivery of services that is where BAN comes in strongly in the aspect of public service financial management that looks at budget participation, transparency and accountability and also revenue generation for the effectiveness of service delivery.”
She described the 5th year of the project as a crucial year for them because they are evaluating them and the cooperation with BAN has been fruitful.
“The engagement has made the Ministry of Finance publishing annual report that is published on their website. The health budget was increase by 11% in 2020 as compared to 2019 which is a remarkable increase and fair target.”
She commended BAN for making all effort to improve public service financial management in Sierra Leone through the training and advocacy, the review tax intensive among others, attract and monitor effectively and deliver in an accountable manner.
“We are hoping that the partnership will continue.”
Dr. Ilara Mahdi, Deputy Director of Budget Ministry of Finance said they are quite pleased to see the stride BAN has played to promote accountability and transparency in Sierra Leone of which they commend and thanked them for the work they have been doing.
“You have been our partner in terms of pushing us and holding us accountable because what we are using are taxpayers’ resources therefore it is imperative that government is accountable to the people and you have been our partner in this journey”.
Dr. Mahdi spoke about their internal PFM unit that looks at their score but said it is also good for them to have an independent body that has an eye on them.
“We have reviewed the scorecard and it is finality going to help us improve on the areas that need to be improved. You can’t underestimate the type of work that you do, ultimately you keep us accountable to the people of Sierra Leone and also help us attract more resources for the people of Sierra Leone because donors who put their resources on the budget like to see what is been used and the level of disclosure help us with that.”
In terms of reform, she said the ministry has a leadership that values the way things are going now in terms of social media, citizens want to be informed, asking more questions and they are doing their best to embrace that and become more accountable.
“The citizen budget is being produce with support from BAN and the Financial Secretary is talking about the Citizen Finance Act for taxpayers to understand some of the rules and regulation that related to tax issues. We are working on improving the Private Public Dialogue with support from DFID.”
She promised to continue their engagement with BAN among other CSOs to improve the areas they need to improve.
“We need to improve on our performance to upload our website, monitoring and date reconciliation which are some of our challenges.”
Brief statement was also made by Osman Alpha Kamara Asst. Director of Budget Ministry of Finance.
