2003 BUDGET:

I would like to thank Mr.Sidi Sanneh, Gassama and Ebrima Ceesay in their effort to throw light in the 2003 budget, which anyone who has read it would come to realize how complex this document is. I have to admit as an Accountant, it is lot easier to look at a budget document on a financial spreadsheet format, and see relationships from the actual performance compared to budget from the previous year, and the final budget for next year. Of course this would be followed by a business plan, or what government would consider a budget policy, to describe the general plan behind the projected revenues and expenditures. But then again, Accountants are not the smartest people in the world, and maybe government budget speech is a big picture exercise, and a regular financial statement cannot tell the whole story.

To add to Ebrima’s definition of a budget, it is a financial planning tool to limit the guessing involve in predicting the future, and a roadmap that all the players can follow. What is a reality is, the whole budget exercise over the years have become a political exercise, rather than a financial one indeed. The annual budget speech is a tradition handed down over the years since colonial times. The Secretary/Minister of Finance would come in front of an irrelevant bunch of participants to explain the way forward. Most of course have always been clueless, but would like to believe that they have debated and pass a budget. Does anyone out there believe that the budget speech as we know it, is actually a required exercise in helping the management of the economy and governance as a whole?

Recommendation:

A total overhaul and discard this colonial ritual and replace it with an exercise that would make the term ACCOUNTABILITY meaningful. Let us have each SOS and his or her department head to explain their performance in comparison to what was budgeted, and to defend their new requests. At the end, the country would still have a consolidated budget base on the economic realities of the day. The government of the day should not use the budgetary session to defend their policies, and engage in a political exercise by giving the impression that everything is OK. Last year around this time the country has gone through the same exercise, and I am yet to be convinced that it has made any meaningful difference. Like I tried to indicate in my opening remark, I would like to see this whole exercise to be seen as a financial planning exercise, and finding the whole truth and nothing but the truth is the only way to make it a meaningful exercise indeed. And please let the numbers do the talking, and a business plan, or in the case of government, an economic policy to buttress the facts.

Thanks
Musa Jeng

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~