By Kemo Cham
Budget transparency is still very low in Sierra Leone, the latest Open Budget Survey has shown.
The Open Budget Survey is part of the International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Initiative, a global research and advocacy program to promote public access to budget information and the adoption of accountable budget systems.
The biennial survey measures public access to information on how central governments raise and spend public resources. 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.
A transparency score of 61 or above indicates a country is likely publishing enough material to support informed public debate on the budget.
Some 117 countries were covered in this year’s survey, 40 of them from the Africa region.
With a transparency score of 39 out of 100, Sierra Leone is one of 39 African countries which were found to be less likely to share information publicly about their budget process to allow debate and participation in the process. Only eight of the African countries scored the global average and above – 45.
South Africa is the only one to score 61 and above. It scored 87. It is followed closely by Uganda (58), Ghana (54), Namibia (51) and Kenya (50). Benin (49), Zimbabwe (49) and Senegal (46) are the other countries that scored the average and above.
Overall Sierra Leone ranks 71 out of the total 117 countries surveyed.
Despite its poor performance, Sierra Leone beats its close neighbor Liberia (38). Guinea wasn’t featured in the survey.
Sierra Leone also notably beat countries like São Tomé e Príncipe (24), Nigeria (21), Equatorial Guinea (5), and Gambia (4).
Sierra Leone has been featured in four of the last seven editions of the survey. Its score in the immediate past survey (2017) was 38. Its best score has been 52 in 2015.
Described as the world’s only independent, comparative and fact-based research instrument, the OBS boasts of using internationally accepted criteria to assess public access to central government budget information. The survey helps local civil society assess and confer with their government on the reporting and use of public funds.
The 2019 survey, the 7th edition, revealed a weak transparency and oversight of government spending on measures to address the global COVID-19 pandemic, the authors note.
They say that this year’s edition found a modest global improvement in budget transparency, which is consistent with the overall trend measured by the survey over the past dozen years.
“While these gains provide grounds for hope, levels of publicly available budget information remain limited,” the report notes.
According to this year’s findings, overall, Sierra Leone increased the availability of budget information by Publishing the Enacted Budget and Year-End Report online. However, it decreased the availability of budget information by failing to produce the Citizens Budget for the Executive's Budget Proposal or Enacted Budget. It also reduced the information provided in the Executive’s Budget Proposal by removing figures on total domestic debt and tax expenditures.
The report proffered several recommendations for Sierra Leone, including the need to prioritize several actions geared towards improving budget transparency. Notably, the country is expected to publish the Pre-Budget Statement and Mid-Year Review online in a timely manner.
“The Pre-Budget Statement should be published online at least one month before the Executive's Budget Proposal is submitted to Parliament, while the Mid-Year Review should be published no later than three months after the mid-point of the fiscal year, the authors wrote.
It added that Sierra Leone should also produce and publish the Citizens Budget for the Executive's Budget Proposal or Enacted Budget online in a timely manner.
“While Sierra Leone did produce and publish citizens versions of the Supplementary Budget and Audit Report during the research period for this OBS, it did not publish a simplified version of either the Executive's Budget Proposal or Enacted Budget.”
Sierra Leone is also advised to include expenditure and policy information in the Executive's Budget Proposal. This includes publishing estimates of all expenditure by administrative, economic, and functional classification for previous, current, and future years, as well as estimates that show how all new policy proposals affect expenditures and revenues.
“Government budget decisions – what taxes to levy, what services to provide, and how much debt to take on – affect how equal a society is and the well-being of its people, including whether the most disadvantaged will have real opportunities for a better life,” wrote the authors of the report.
“It is critical that governments inform and engage the public on these vital decisions that impact their lives,” they added.
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