Integrity Watch of Liberia (IWL), an acclaimed Civil Society Organization leading several top Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) has announced receiving a grant over US$130,000 in their quest to fully ensure citizens’ participation in the Liberian budget processes.
Speaking at program marking the official launch of IWL fiscal Transparency Project under the topic “Promoting Citizens’ Participation in the budgets process” held at the Icampus yesterday, IWL Executive Director, Harold Adidoo, announced that the National Endowment for Democracy has granted to him as head of CSOs working group the amount of $130,000.
“Our intention is to follow our money in the communities, in the districts and in the counties. We are happy to announce that the National Endowment for Democracy was gracious enough to have awarded us grant values over US$130,0OO to work to promote citizens’ participation in the budget,” Mr. Aidoo disclosed.
Aidoo indicated that what is most vital is, ‘what becomes the national cake in Liberia is heavily informed by citizens’ participation in terms of their needs and their priorities adding, “We are hoping that through this project and in partnering with Ministry of Finance, Development Planning the Ministry of Health, education and Agriculture Ministries, we will be able to work together to make sure that citizens can come up annually with shadow budget option paper that could be looked at by the Ministry Finance and hopefully some of the policy recommendations that will emerge of this policy papers will be considered to be mainstreaming to the national budget.”
“We are also hoping that through this funding, we will be able to work to participate in the second budget working group meeting that will be led and organized by different agents and line miniseries and we are also hoping that we will be able to follow the money once the budget is drafted by the Ministry of Finance and goes to Legislature for final approval. We hoping that we can participate as CSO budget platform in the different sector budget working group meetings in the budget hearings, the different processes that will lead to the ultimate finalization of the budget processes,” he said.
He intimated that IWL is hoping to be able to work with other CSO actors particularly, the Civil Society Budget Platform to roll out the implementation of the project.
“We are hoping to be a partner of government to make sure that our budget works for the Liberian people,” he said.
Giving the background of the program, Aidoo said the citizens’ participation in the budget processes is vital-noting that that nation places primer on its citizens- noting, because it is determined by the budget and this is because; over all, it is the budget that determines what amount of resources goes where , who gets what, and who doesn’t get what and so forth.
“So the budget is a very important piece of Legislative instrument because the budget ultimately determines, how the country progresses, how employment are created, how the economy grows, which sector of the economy are prioritized and so forth and what this also means, At the center of the budget has to be the people and we from the CSOs have also learnt that from a very long period of time, our nation has not placed the citizens at the central of it budgeting process.”
“It is in this light, that we at Integrity watch Liberia has conceded this project that seeks to promote citizens’ participation in the budget process,” he said.
According to Adidoo, there are plentiful of documentations and narratives that underscore the facts that citizens’ participation in budget has gone below historically and continues to remain low.
He added that the structure of the national budget is not formulated from button up and does not also generate needs and priorities citizens influenced.
“What ultimately determined who gets, what who doesn’t get what, the voices of marginalized and grassroots communities have often been missing in the budget processes and we are hoping that even as the government seeks to develop mechanism to institutionalize citizens’ participation in the budget process, CSOs can become a partner aimed at accentuating citizens participation in the budget making sure that not only making sure that do we put this on paper or policy papers, but making this a practical reality,” IWL Executive Director noted.
Serving a chief Launcher, Deputy Finance Minister, Tanneh G. Brunson said transparency in the budget process is one of the key pillars of good governance; globally, the budget processes have scored a lot of successes in terms of greater participation and scrutiny; however, there is no single recipe in order to create a successful initiative to enhance transparency and accountability in the budget process.
Madam Brunson intimated that there is a consistent set of factors across transparency and accountability initiatives that are classified as successful in various dimensions.
She said the CDC-led government welcomes the project because generally, budget support has become a preferred instrument for many foreign aid donors, who may now take a greater interest in transparency to ensure that the funds they put into general government coffers are spent appropriately.
“And this, we shall work to ensure. Additionally, we can attribute increased interest in open budgets to political momentum around participatory budgeting. Participatory budgeting fits in with a broader range of initiatives that aim to strengthen citizens’ participation in government’s accountability,” she said; writes Alex Yomah
