The Executive Director of BudgIT Liberia, Abraham Varney, has disclosed that Liberia performed very poorly in the 2022 Open Budget Survey Report, scoring 6% in public participation in national budget process and 45% in transparency.
Director Varney made the disclosure at a one-day workshop for CSOs, youth groups, media and citizens on monitoring of national budget and projects in Liberia, held on September 21, 2022 at Corina Hotel, Tubman Boulevard.
He disclosed that BudgIT Liberia recognizes that citizens’ input and participation in budgeting processes is critical to ensuring the budget reflects citizens’ priorities, and the government is accountable to their needs.
Varney said BudgIT Liberia seeks to enhance citizens’ understanding of the national budget through promoting citizens’ oversight and monitoring of the budgeting processes in Margibi, Bong and Grand Bassa counties.
“The essence of the workshop is to empower citizens with the knowledge of the national budget and public financial data, for which we simplify every budget year for citizens to understand national government’s fiscal plan,” he stated.
According to him, educating the citizenry and tracking government’s fiscal plan are all geared toward putting government’s feet to the fire to effectively implement public projects, and demand needed public projects in various communities in the country.
Over 30 participants from different communities were in attendance of the training, intended to provide the opportunity to form part of a budget monitoring committee to track government’s public sector investment plan (PSIP) earmarked in the national budget in their counties.
