A tall order
Editorial
Stabroek News
February 27, 2004
The government in December 2003 passed a new budget law, the Fiscal Management and Accountability Bill, which if implemented fully will facilitate transparency in government's financial and fiscal affairs.
The new Act requires that the government present the national budget in a prescribed format which apart from setting out the financial plan for a particular budget-fiscal year, covers a four-year financial cycle, and includes a statement of the government's fiscal, social and political policy objectives and priorities for the budget-year; reviews the execution of the previous year's budget as well as explains any major differences in the financial plan and actual performance; tabulates and analyses actual and projected tax, non-tax and other revenues for past relevant years, the previous fiscal year, the budget fiscal year and the following three fiscal years; tabulates and analyses actual and projected expenditures, classified by government functions for the said periods; estimates all statutory expenses and investment expenditure for all budget agencies for the said periods; provides a statement of usage of a planned budget surplus or the sources of financing of a budget deficit, a statement on the budget surplus/deficit and the stock of short term public debt and long term public debt; and gives details of the fiscal relationship between the government and the regions; as well as programme performance statements on each programme by each budget agency and drafts of any proposed legislation to implement revenue, expenditure and financing policies presented in the budget proposals.
It also calls for a half-year review on the execution of the annual budget and prospects for the remainder of the fiscal year (which includes a review of the economy's performance), for the budget circular to be available some six months in the current year for the next budget fiscal year and sets out the requirements and methods of the heads of departments in each ministry and region in preparation of their budgets. These are among the key requirements of the new law.
While highly desirable, the requirements are a tall order for the Ministry of Finance and the other ministries and regions and will push the skill-constraint buttons.
The government over the years has passed several useful pieces of legislation including a more modern Companies Act but there has been no corresponding upgrading of the supporting infrastructure to facilitate implementation. A more recent example is the Money Laundering and Prevention Act. The Securities Industries Act has been coming into force in phases as will the new budget law. In the case of the latter, this will be fully enacted by the end of this year.
Let's not knock it. It is commendable that the government can push ahead with legislative reforms. However, the lack of the necessary trained and experienced staff will constitute a bottleneck to implementation unless the undertaking of legislative reforms, required by the international agencies, is accompanied by technical assistance aimed not only at training staff but designing packages to keep them on the job.