PHOTO: Participants at the consultation
By Augustine Octavius, augustineoctavius@gmail.com
The Liberian government through the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning has officially launched pre-budgetary consultation on the 2023 draft national budget with civil society organizations in the country.
The consultation, which brought 60 CSOs in the transparency sector from all over Monrovia and its environs, was aimed at providing the information on the formulation and the spending of the national budget to CSOs and other key stakeholders on Thursday.
Funding for the activity with members of Liberia’s Fiscal Transparency Advisory Group was provided by the World Bank.
At the launching ceremony, Deputy Finance Minister for Budget, Tenneh Brunson, on behalf of Finance Minister, Samuel Tweah, assured the CSOs of government’s commitment to continuously support opportunity for citizens to contribute to decision making process around the budget which affect their livelihood.
According to her, it is based on this background the Finance and Development Planning Ministry is working with civil society organizations and other stakeholders to improve their involvement citizens’ participation in the national budget formulation and spending .
Minister Brunson added that the aim of the consultation is to build the capacity of the government to implement mechanisms for public participation in the elaboration of fiscal policies while providing opportunities for dialogue between civil society and public finance authorities on the use of public resources.
“We will continue engagements like these, with citizens mostly through civil society actors who have interest in the publication and analyses of government budgets so as to ensure conformity with fiscal transparency norms that links to development” she said; adding: “ the current initiative is a product of the fiscal openness accelerator project that is geared towards fiscal transparency for the public participation for better use of public resources and is under the auspices of the International Budget Partnership and its subsidiary , the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency,” said the Deputy Finance Minister for Budget.
For her part, the Chairperson of the National Civil Society Council of Liberia, Loretta Pope Kai, said public participation is very cardinal to the budget process as it makes government more accountable and responsive to its citizens.
According to her, it is also intended to provide an opportunity for citizens to make in puts in identifying their priorities as well as improve their perception of the performance of the government.
She said base of this back ground, citizens will be able to play a crucial role in advocating and helping to make public institutions more transparent, accountable and effective as well as contributing innovative solutions to complex development challenges.
“The recognition that citizens have both rights and responsibility to contribute to decision making process that affect their wellbeing is fundamental to public financial management.”
Mrs. Pope Kai stressed the need for civil society and by extension citizens’ participation in the budgeting process of the country’s national budget is very crucial and essential.
She maintained that the National Civil Society Council of Liberia viewed this venture on the part of the Finance and Development Planning Ministry as a renewed effort by the government to harness public participation in such important national process.
Mrs. Pope Kai pointed out that public participation in the national budgeting process, from its formulation, to its execution and subsequent evaluation is one surest way of enhancing budget transparency and accountability, because the fight against corruption cannot be won in the absence of public participation.
The Civil Society Council assured the Liberian government of the CSOs commitment to be a meaningful participation in these processes, hoping that they are genuinely meant to ensure greater and meaningful citizens’ participation and not mere posturing to achieve a certain end.
In remarks, the Executive Director of Integrity Watch Liberia, Harold Aidoo said that citizens’ and CSOs’ were subjected to back benchers when it comes participation in budget formulation and usage in the past.
He expressed the hope that the budget impact the citizens and improves their lives by undertaking projects and programs that will have tracer down effect.