G-L, I received a private request to share the posting below prompted by questions raised by Mr. Omar Gaye both of which appeared at the Post. In response to the request, I have taken the liberty of re-posting them on the G-L. I hope that Omar wouldn't mind having his message displayed here together with my response to some of his very pertinent questions. _______________________________ Omar, I have been out of the civil service system for over a decade and thus may be out of tune with the budget process. The initial process starts with what is called a 'Call Circular' issued by the Department of State for Finance under the hand of the Permanent Secretary as the 'Accounting Officer' of the Department responsible for the Budget. I understand that the function of Accounting Officer has been transferred to SoS. Whether this affects who signs the call letter, I cannot say. Anmyway, this circular sets out the parameters to guide individual Departments in the preparation of their individual budgets. These revenue/expenditure parameters are influenced by several players and events of past budget performances. The IMF and the WB have increasingly influenced the shape and form of the Call Circular and thus the budget preparation exercise. The end result of this part of the budget exercise is what is called the Budget Estimates divide into two parts: the recurrent and development expenditure. This document looks more like what you would expect a budget to look like ( i guess this is what you were expecting to see) rather the Budget Speech which introduces the budget which is accompanied by a bill. That's why the opening statement of the SoS is a motion ..I beg to move that ' The Bill entitled an Act to provide for the services of The Gambia for the period...'be read a second time. The bill will be legislated when the motion has been considered by Parliament at the current sitting and approved. As I write, they are discussing the budget bill. I alluded to the commencement of the budget process as starting with the Call Letter which we used to issue around the 15 August to all Ministries. The executinve, legistative and judicial branches are all required to submit their budget proposals throught their respective Ministries to Finance. Each Department/Miomistry is invited to Finance to defend their proposal. The budget speech introduces the substantive part of the budget. I am not sure that the State of the Union is a Budget statement but rather an assessment of the overall achievement of the US government in the past year and the policy direction that the Administration wishes to pursue in the year ahead and to outline its legistative agenda etc. Anyway, the budget process in the US is different from the typical parliamentary system. For our purposes we will stick with what I believe obtains in the Gambia. You are right, the document looks like a policy document, and that's exactly what it is. Chapter 13 is standard. It gives budget assumptions, revenue projections etc. for parliamentarians and people who would normally not have access to the Budget proper to apprecaite the assuptions behind the numbers, and most importantly to send a warning to all and saundry that the revenue expected would determine the expenditure pattern in the comming year with a set limit for acceptable fiscal deficit. More detailed presentation of the assumptions etc can be found at the back of the Budget Estimates. Omar, this, in a nutshell, is what I can recall of the process. I have little doubt that there has been omissions. In spite of this, I hope it gives you the gist of the process and offer some clarification. I invite experts to suppliment and/or correct any information contained in this post. Sidi Sanneh ----Original Message Follows---- From: Omar Gaye <[log in to unmask]> Reply-To: [log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [>-<] Background to Budget Speech Discourse Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 06:58:42 -0800 (PST) People: I am sure that Koto Sidi, Yus and all the others did not take the trouble to bring us the 2003 Budget Speech for our reading pleasures only. What is expected from us is an intelligent, and sometimes heated discourse about this document. To set the tone, we might want to have some background knowledge on budget and government. If anyone could help answer these fewquestions, please help educate us so that we can submit informed opinions on this. For starters, I looked up the defintion of 'budget' on Webster: a statement of the financial position of an administration for a definite period of time based on estimates of expenditures during the period and proposals for financing them. This brings me to these questions: -- Why is this called a budget speech and not a budget bill? Is it because it is the speech that intoduces the bill? -- Is the bill then legislated on, or was that done beforehand? -- When and how are the government expenditures (budget) formulated? Does it originate from the executive and then passed by the House? -- If this is not a bill, what is it? Is it like, say, the US State of the Union address to congress? If so, why is it not given by the president? -- Most of this document looks to me more like a policy document than a financial statement, except chapter 13. Is that the purpose of it? Koto Sidi, I am humbly requesting your help on these questions. The very learned forumites are all asked to help. Omar --------------------------------- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~