According to a just released International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey Report 2021 Sierra Leone has improved slightly on public access to budget information.
The report was launched on Tuesday 31st May by the Budget Advocacy Network at the CCSL Hall, Kingharman Road in Freetown.
Giving a synopsis of the report, the National Coordinator, Budget Advocacy Network, Abu Bakarr Kamara said the Open Budget Survey is the world’s only comparative, independent and regular assessment of transparency, oversight and public participation in public budgets in 120 countries.
“Sierra Leone’s transparency score increased from 39 out of 100 in 2019 to 45 out of 100 in 2021, which is the global average score. This means that citizens still have limited access to the information they need to participate in decision making and hold the government to account, he said.”
Mr. Kamara noted that the publication of the citizen’s budget in a timely manner contributed to the slight improvement in the transparency scores and that budget oversight also slightly improved from 42 out of 100 to 46 out of 100.
More importantly, Mr. Kamara noted that Sierra Leone’s public participation (31 out of 100) is more than two folds the global average (14 out of 100).
“Sierra Leone is making some strides towards improving transparency and budget oversight by way of having a strategy to improve the Open Budget scores,” Mr. Kamara noted.
Budget Advocacy Network conducted the research for Sierra Leone annually and that despite the improvement more needs to be done to ensure that citizens have access to adequate information that will enable them to participate in decision making and hold government to account by providing more detailed information on the Executive Budget Proposal, publishing the Mid-Year Review Report and the Pre-Budget Statement on time.
Reacting to the report, Dr. Ilara Madhi from the Ministry of Finance said that the ministry published the citizen’s budget annually including other financial documents leading to the improvement that had been recorded.
On the financial data Dr. Mahdi said the Ministry of Finance continue to make such data accessible to the public and that they work closely with the micro fiscal division in making sure that the public has access to these documents.
“We now have a department that monitors the commitment on the budget. In term of engaging vulnerable groups we will continue to work with civil society organizations especially the Budget Advocacy Network in this area. We will continue to work with more stakeholders and more people on the budget, he said.”
We have made progress these commitments on transparency and this is one area we will continue to work on, Dr. Madhi said.
This will help us to attract donor funding and more support, while noting that the government has no choice but to continue in this direction.
“Accountability systems are still weak globally, but several countries like South Africa, Mexico and
the likes are showing that where there is political will, progress is possible,” said Anjali Garg, head of the Open Budget Survey. “Open budget practices are a winning proposition –they build public trust that governments can deliver and can lead to lower borrowing costs at a time when global debt and inequality is at all-time high. We hope more countries will be emboldened to open up their budget process to public consultation and scrutiny to ensure scarce resources reach those who need them most.”
The Policy Analyst of Budget Advocacy Network, Abu Bakarr Tarawally while reading the released put out said it is somewhat surprising, the pandemic did not undo hard-fought gains in transparent and accountable spending practices worldwide.
He said most countries were able to maintain, and in some cases build on earlier gains, thanks to increased digitalization of information and the institutionalization of accountability practices.
“The average transparency score has increased more than 20 percent since 2008. However, the survey found that legislative oversight has declined. Some executive governments have found ways to undermine Supreme Audit Institutions. Only 31 percent of countries provide sufficiently detailed information to understand how their budget addresses poverty and only 14 percent present their expenditures by gender. Only 8 countries worldwide have formal channels to engage underserved communities in budget processes,” he said.
By Alimatu Jalloh