By Abass Jalloh
The 2021 Open Budget Survey (OBS) Report launched by Budget Advocacy Network (BAN), indicated that most of Sierra Leone’s government budget reports were not timely published for public access. This was said to have covered the period 2012 to 2021.
The focus of the survey was Pre-Budget Statement, Executive’s Budget Proposal, Enacted Budget, Citizens Budget, In-Year Reports, Mid-Year Review, Year-End Report, and Audit Report.
For 2012, 2015, 2017, and 2019, the report looked at public access to budget documents, and lateness in publishing both hardcopy and online. However, the year 2020 was not included in the survey due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
Between 2012 and 2021, according to the OBS report, documents of pre-budget statements and mid-year reviews were either “published late, not published online, or produced for internal use only”.
Pre-budget statement discloses the parameters of fiscal policies in advance of the executive’s budget proposal. It also outlines the government’s economic forecast, anticipated revenue, expenditure, and debt.
In Sierra Leone, the OBS report stated that the pre-budget statement for 2021 was “published late”.
The report stated that the mid-year fiscal review was of “internal use” only in 2021.
However, documents of the executive’s budget proposal, the in-year report, and the audit report were consistently being made “available to the public” from 2012 to 2021, according to OBS.
it noted that the year 2017 in particular had the year-end report published late, was not published online, and got produced for internal use only.
In the aspect of the citizen's budget document, the report stated the documents were “not produced” in 2012 and 2019. OBS however admitted that in 2021, Sierra Leone increased the availability of budget information by “publishing the citizen’s budget online.” This was also confirmed by Dr. Ilara Mahdi from the Ministry of Finance.
As a way of recommendation, Sierra Leone was urged to prioritize publishing the pre-budget statement and mid-year review online in a timely manner, including the executive budget proposal data on the financial position of the government and data on the microeconomic forecast, including year-end report comparisons between borrowing estimates and actual outcomes.
The report further recommended public participation by actively engaging with vulnerable and under-represented communities, which would allow members of the public or civil society organizations to testify during hearings on the budget proposal before approval or during a hearing on the audit report, and establish formal mechanisms for the public to contribute to relevant audit investigations.
OBS is an organization that does comparative, independent, and regular assessments on the transparency, oversight, and public participation in public budgets in 120 countries. Sierra Leone was ranked 64 in the overall process.
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