By Ibrahim Barrie
In an effort to improve transparency and efficiency of local Councils’ spending and attract an increase in budgetary allocations in areas dealing with youth and women issues and those with disabilities, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have for the second time launched the Budget tracking report focusing on specific key social service delivery sectors; Health, Education, Rural Water, Agriculture and Social Welfare. The report also looked at expenditures and variances, targeting councils in the Western Rural District, Bo, Kono and Bombali.
According to the report for 2020, the estimated budget was Le 109.5 billion (one hundred and nine billion), while the actual money allocated was Le118.5 billion (one hundred and eighteen billion Leone) in 2020. All four councils targeted received more than what was budgeted, because of the rollover budget from 2019 to 2020.
“The data revealed that all sectors received above what was approved. Information on Health budgets and expenditures for Kono, and Bombali was not provided. However, partial information was provided for Western Area Rural District Council and the Bo District Council,” the report noted.
The launch which was held at the Radisson Blu hotel in Freetown on Thursday 15th July was attended by the Centre for Coordination of Youth Activities (CCYA), Campaign for good Governance (CGG) Actionaid, Local Authorities (LA’s), Ministry Department Authorities’ (MDA’s) and District councils.
In his statement, the Executive Director of ActionAid, Foday Swaray said the report is a product of the work of three CSO’s in the four districts. “This project seeks to enhance the organizational technical diversities to more productive engagement with their Local Authorities. We believe, budget has the power to address and protect gender inequality, and can transform social and economic relation power, inequality and discourse,” he said.
Director of Research Delivery Unit at the Ministry of Finance (MOF) Dr. Yakama James in her keynote address cleared the air on late disbursement of public funds. She said service delivery requires resources, and that at the ministry of finance, their overall mandate in terms of leading the public finance management with resources can not only be those that they generate from the risk economy, but also those they get from development partners to help the Ministry deliver these services for the people of Sierra Leone.
She added that there is a widespread need for building data system management and information sharing across government.
She assured that, government is taking information sharing and reporting very important.
As government, she said they need to work with the private sector and other financial institutions on how they can develop more creative ways in financing the development agenda.
In his statement, the chairperson of the launch Dr. Charles Silver said the management of public finances is a fundamental role of the state in contemporary time.
Abigail Stevens representative of the CCYA emphasized the relevance of the report which she said will help CSOs track budget network and delivery of budgets and ensuring community monitoring and participation. She said it will also help them challenge issues around accountability and especially the extent to which gender responsive budget is taking to account for the different state of women and girls, youth and persons with disability for improved service delivery. “CSO’s in this project were empowered to use both score cards and public expenditure tracking tools as participatory monitoring tools for effective gender responsive service delivery,” she explained.
In an effort to increase transparency and accountability on how funds meant for the councils are utilised, the report recommends that all sectors on a regular basis update the public on funds. It also urged councils to ensure that there is more collaboration between stakeholders working around the same issues.
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