Budget is an annual coasted plan of expenditure that seeks to provide guidelines and control spending in government quest to execute projects for development, thus preventing waste bearing in mind resources available and those expected to accrue within the period in question. Budget is clearly the responsibility of the Executive arm of government not only […]
Budget is an annual coasted plan of expenditure that seeks to provide guidelines and control spending in government quest to execute projects for development, thus preventing waste bearing in mind resources available and those expected to accrue within the period in question. Budget is clearly the responsibility of the Executive arm of government not only because they control the treasury and means of generating resources but also many other reasons too numerous to mention. The legislature however is responsible for oversight function in order to ensure that budget is properly implemented. Also for a budget to be meaningful, less controversial and people oriented the bottom up approach need to be adopted in its preparation. Here views and input from the public through the legislature should be considered and important ones co-opted into the budget proposal.
Planning and Budgeting Team (PBT) of each Ministry, Department/Directorate and Agency (MDA) should be responsible for preparing their budget proposal which is eventually collated by National Planning and Budgeting Team (NPBT). At this stage Chairmen and Secretaries of Legislative MDA budget committees can be involved and input from the legislature submitted for inclusion in the proposal. At the same time when the Executive arm meets to consider and approve the final copy of the proposed budget before passing it to the legislature the leadership of the two (2) legislative arms that is the Senate and House of representatives can be invited to participate in the meeting. This will go a long way in solving some of the problems of unnecessary meddling and padding of the budget.
When the budget is approved and implementation stage reached the MDAs are expected to strictly adhere to inbuilt mechanism for check and balances that guide their activities especially the financial regulations, which I am sure with the current responsible and no-nonsense leadership at the helm of affairs in the country anything less cannot be tolerated. Therefore roles played by the so called Due Process and the Procurement Council in the award of contracts need to re-examined in order to avoid delay in budget implementation, after all in the past they were known to be seriously bedevilled by corruption and nepotism to the extent that only contractors they favoured could be awarded contracts and projects located in the areas of their choice were executed. However, the Due Process Directorate and the Procurement Council can be re-organised and merged with existing structures to monitor and evaluate implementation of the budget to ensure that specification are complied with and quality of works and supplies are not compromised.
