By Laurina B Lormia (Cub-Reporter)
The Executive Director of Integrity Watch Liberia, Harold Aidoo, has hailed the Legislature for allowing CSOs to not be just mere observers, but for the first time to fully participate in the joint budget hearings at the Legislature.
According to him, this initiative will strengthen the engagement and the oversight of the legislators, adding that it will also help those CSOs to follow-up and ensure that the actual amount allocated for each spending entity is properly expended transparently.
Addressing the press at the Capitol Building in Monrovia, on Tuesday, April 23, Mr. Aidoo said, during the hearings, civil society organizations like the Integrity Watch Liberia had the opportunity to raise key concerns for the responses of these different spending institutions.
He said there is a need for CSOs to not only form part of the budget hearings but also fully participate in the revenue of the budget process by those institutions.
“We are happy that we can facilitate these kinds of engagements between civil society, citizens and their legislators because the budget needs to have a mechanism where the citizens can participate in the budget process and we think that are an important first step to have civil society organizations participating in the budget process,” he maintained.
“The current fiscal space of the budget is very small, and we believe that by having civil society organizations to participate in the budget process, will bring the perspectives of the issues at the community level to inform this budget discussion,” he added.
The 2024 draft national budget has a tight space to address all of the major priorities of the various institutions, stressing the need to collectively work and expand the fiscal space for national growth and development.
Meanwhile, he said his institution is expected to submit a “Budget Option Paper” before or during the 2025 Draft National Budget process, the paper will clearly articulate key areas where the national government can prioritize, noting that the initiative will also be in line with the government’s own development plan.
He concluded, “We need to make sure that we all optimize domestic resource mobilization, which is one of the key issues that we have been pointing out to, no matter what kind of development plan or program any government would come up with, in the absence of resources, it would just be business as usual.”
