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Looking Beyond Budget Hearing |
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Written by Lewis Glay
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Friday, 10 August 2012 05:36 |
As long lasts, the 53rd National Legislature has opened a public budget hearing to scrutinize the 2012/13 Fiscal Budget. The exercise commits spending ministries and agencies of the government to appear and defend their allocations captured in the budget. Justifications must be given by individual ministries and agencies that would be entrusted with state resources, as to why they should be allowed to utilize allocated resources, as well as how those resources should be utilized.
For the first time since President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf took over the mantle of power in post-conflict Liberia, this year appears to be captured as a noticeable delayed- year for fiscal budget to be passed by the National Legislature. One could hasten to provide two convincing reasons why the delay and the effects the citizens are confronted with. One, the citizens and their lawmakers are faced with a new terrain when they heard about a three-year proposed budget being crafted in the first year of President Sirleaf’s second and perhaps last term. And two, the draft budget itself was submitted to the 53rd National Legislature beyond schedule and given its seeming complex nature, members of the Legislature appear to be skeptical as to how to go about scrutinizing the budget.
In any case, the start of the long-awaited public hearing has attracted the public as the wave of embarrassment and humiliation facing some government officials whose deliberations in defense of their allocations in the budget have not been impressive. The public seems to be much interested in hearing convincing justifications from spending ministries and agencies when it comes to how they would expend the taxpayers’ money expected to be entrusted.
Radio talk shows in Monrovia have also indicated that the public wants key priority institutions such as the Ministries of Health, Education, Defense, Public Works and Agriculture to be apportioned enough allocations that would positively impart the lives of Liberians on the average. However, while many are advocating for increment in the budgetary allocation to benefit these ministries, others also suggest that careful monitoring at spending ministries and agencies should not be ignored because; no matter how much amount given to a public entity does not really matter, but how well it is expended for the common good of the country and its people.
Moreover, the lawmakers have a stake in deciding the fate of the citizens they serve at the Capitol Building. The timely intervention of legislators now to curtail few persons expending the nation’s resources for self-aggrandizements would mean well for a war-surviving country like Liberia. To some extent, critics of the lawmakers seem to admire the trend of the hearing process, but unless the gear and intent of the scrutiny are focused on national interests, the public could point an index finger at the lawmakers for what might go wrong after the budget is passed and government ministries and agencies are allowed to spend the resources the way they may find it fit. It is therefore only a caution that the Capitol Building should properly scrutinize the budget and soberly make allocations taking priority areas into sharp focus. |
