Parliamentary budget office vital to improve budget process

With the 2011/12 parliamentary budget sessions continuing unabated in Dodoma, concerns have been raised over the members of parliament's oversight role in the budget process. The parliament's budgetary oversight function is not only deemed ineffective but also largely a routine scanning and rubber-stamping occasion.

It remains an open secret that the bulk of the MPs lack capacity in terms of appropriate technical skills to effectively participate in the budget process. A lot of noise has been made over the failure by parliament to hand over budget books within the stipulated time. Article 96 of the Parliamentary Standing orders (2007 Edition) stipulate that parliamentarians should get budget books 27 days before the budget session for them to make meaningful contributions during the debates.

Despite the failure to get the books on time, parliamentarians lack the technical know-how when it comes to budget matters as they stem from various professional backgrounds such as engineering, medicine, education, social sciences and entertainment. This cripples their ability to effectively engage the executive on budgetary matters and in most cases they submit to some policies, not because they agree, but due to ignorance.

Parliament plays an important role in the running of a country as its oversight duties contribute to the crucial role of effectively monitoring and reviewing the legislature, policy and fiscal administration by government on behalf of the citizens. But, for this to be achieved, the parliament's oversight of the budget process has to be effective.

The oversight role is achieved when the parliament keeps an eye on the activities of the executive and holds the executive to account on behalf of the general populace. But, in Tanzania, government's ranking in respect of its performance in budget transparency and parliamentary oversight continues to be low.

It is against this background that Policy Forum, a network of over 100 civil society organisations, advocates the establishment of an independent non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), a move meant to strengthen the legislature’s oversight role in the budget process.

In a bid to achieve this, the network held an awareness meeting with MPs in Dodoma recently. And, addressing the gathering the coordinator of Policy Forum, Semkae Kilonzo, highlighted the need to establish a Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), an independent, non-partisan, entity formed under the auspices of the office of parliament that examines the budget proposal from the executive and enables MPs to come up with alternative budgets.

Johnson Kaijage, of the Policy Forum secretariat, during the same meeting, presented the PBO concept and the rationale to support its establishment in Tanzania, pointing out that there was a need to improve the capacity of MPs to be more proactive in the budget process and engage more meaningful with the executive - particularly with regards to analysing the proposals submitted to them in parliament.

‘MPs need more information to engage effectively in the process. At the moment, inadequate information is being provided and often too late to make meaningful inputs,’ he added.

He also explained that PBOs are designed to prepare economic forecasts that are independent of the executive, analyse budget proposals submitted by the executive, develop budget projections and prepare spending-cut options for legislative consideration.

In a press statement released recently, Policy Forum's budget working group member, Moses Kulaba, said, ‘The network has for a long time observed the performance of parliament in delivering upon democratic governance and is concerned that it is wanting in exercising its budgetary oversight function.’

Kulaba observed that parliament’s weakness in execution of this key oversight duty contrasts sharply with the executive’s management of the whole budget process. ‘There is minimal involvement of parliamentarians in the process,’ he added.

The 2011 Open Budget Index, a comprehensive survey that evaluates whether governments give adequate public access to budget information and opportunities to stakeholders to participate in the budget process, confirms this weakness.

Kilonzo said that the 2010 Open Budget Index rated the Tanzanian parliament’s budgetary oversight as being weak because it does not have full powers to change the executive’s budget proposal at the start of the budget year; it does not have sufficient time to discuss and approve the executive’s budget proposal (citing receipt of the budget in less than six weeks before the start of the financial year); and it does not hold open discussions at which the public can participate.

‘This is coupled with low technical analytical capacity of parliamentarians and insufficient information to effectively hold duty bearers to account, contributing to parliament’s weak performance on budgetary oversight,’ Kilonzo added.

An independent Parliamentary Budget Office, established under the structures of the legislature would, among other things, examine the draft annual budget proposed by the executive and provide analytical support to parliamentarians to be able to question the proposal in question and enable them to propose alternative budget proposals. Its key role is to produce objective budgetary, fiscal and programmatic information for legislators to be able to contribute, interpret, review and make concrete judgments regarding budget proposals - hence effectively exercising their oversight functions.

‘The PBO has been established in other jurisdictions like Kenya, Uganda and Ghana who previously had parliamentarians who experienced the same problems as ours. The evidence from these countries is that MPs have strengthened their capacity and are now more engaged in the budget process giving meaningful inputs to the executive’s proposals,’ said Kulaba.

Parliament’s oversight of the budget process involves monitoring and review of the entire budget process including the broad fiscal challenges facing government, expenditure controls and budgetary tradeoffs that affect present and future spending. Overall, the budgetary oversight function is part of a checks-and-balances system that ensures that there is accountability in the utilisation of inadequate financial resources.

It remains to be seen whether the parliament will spearhead the formation of the PBO for better accountability and to help parliamentarians effectively execute their budget oversight role. This will be enabled by the fact that the office will become an oasis of information (on budget issues) in this desert.

* Eugenia Madhidha is a media specialist with Sikika, a member of Policy Forum’s budget working group.
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