Question

• Why might a government want to obtain input from its citizens on budgetary needs prior to adopting a final budget?  

Answer 1

A government might need inputs from its citizens on budgetary needs prior to adopting a final because because:

• It helps in improving the three level of government by improving the evaluation, transparency, and efficiency in the performance of federalized spending.
• Tracking and publishing budget information transparent and accessible to the public which can help in critical input from the citizens hence improvisation in policy making.
• Promoting the participation of beneficiary community in the planning, implementation, control, monitoring,and evaluation of projects that will be undertaken.

Examples:

Philippines: Grassroots Budgeting seeks to makes room for greater participation from the local levels, allowing each city or municipality, in partnership with local communities and CSOs, to identify their priority poverty reduction programs that will be financed by national government agencies.

South Korea: citizen participation in budget formulation was sought in order to help support the introduction of the medium term expenditure framework. There was a need to create credible, legitimate, and justifiable mechanisms for setting multiyear budget ceilings and enforcing those ceilings on line ministries. Public participation helps the government to assert and commit to realistic ceilings.

South Africa :- established a “Tips for the Minister” hotline managed by the Treasury. The objective of this service is to crowd-source ideas for the budget to hit the “value for money mark”. Similarly, Korea has implemented a Budget Waste Reporting Center to enable members of the public to report wastage and inefficiencies during budget implementation.