RECORDER REPORT

PESHAWAR: The Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) has launched study on budget making process at district level in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for transparency and citizens’ participation in the entire exercise.

The survey on budget making process was conducted by member organizations of Citizens’ Network for Budget Accountability (CNBA) in 24 districts of KP while one district didn’t provide information. CNBA is a network of 15 civil society organizations working for budget reforms and accountability at district level in KP, according to statement issued by the organisation, here on Monday.

The objective of this study is to analyze the process of budget making at district level and to highlight the status of compliance with the time provided in the Budget Rules 2016.

Empirical data has been collected from all districts through a network of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) from all districts to determine this. The purpose of this exercise is to determine the level of public participation in the budget making process and also to help the CSOs in identifying the gaps in the process.

The study showed that only eight districts had issued budget call circular till November 15 and there was one district that had not issued BCL as late as March 31. Consequently, only 8 districts were able to approve their budget before June 30, 2017. Districts performance in term of transparency and sharing of the information with public is not enviable at all. There are only five districts that have their functional website. Amongst them, only one district has posted budget for the last three years at its website.

Participants on the occasion said that the pre-budget consultations are mandatory according to the budget rules and would have provided a chance to the stakeholders to express their opinion and get a feeling of being included.

The study also pointed out the poor situation of budget branch in term of human resource. There are, in total, 406 vacancies in budget branch against which only 296 persons are posted. In addition, 11 districts do not have DDO Planning that partially explains the poor performance of the budget making process at district level.

Raja Shoaib Akbar, Senior Programme Manager, CPDI said the KP Assembly should present budget in the month of April every year to ensure proper debate by the opposition members and treasury benches in the budget session.