By Fatima Kpaka
In preparedness for the 2023 Budget Appropriation hearings, Parliament of Sierra Leone has on Monday, October 17, 2022 engaged Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) at the New Administrative Building of Parliament at Tower Hill in Freetown.
The Director of Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), Ibrahim Jimisa, has said that they had invited participants to improve on collaboration to ensure transparency, accountability, and oversight on national budgetary process.
He told MDAs that the current Parliament would dissolve by April 2023, and that the Parliamentary Administration had taken that into consideration now have the engagement with various MDAs, in light of the House’s preparedness for the 6th Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone.
He hoped that the participants would use the engagement as a drive to enhance the budgeting process in light of good governance.
Speaking on behalf of the Clerk of Parliament, the Director General of Parliament, Madam Finda Frazer said the institution continues to collaborate with other partners to enhance transparency and accountability in the budgeting process.
She informed that reforms introduced by the current Parliament include changes in the budget appropriation process and its corporate agenda. Frazer added that they would use the current ranking of the country including Parliament on key governance indicators. She expressed that Parliament has a critical role to play in sustaining and improving performance on policy indicators, despite its oversight and other mandates on activities of the MDAs.
She assured participants that they would use Parliament’s open door policy to enhance budget accountability and oversight with serious consideration on the views of participants in light of the forthcoming annual budget.
According to her, the event was being organized through the strong desire of the leadership of Parliament to enhance collaboration and transparency.