266 BILLION MORE INTO OUR NATIONAL BUDGET: A DO AND DIE MISSION FOR THE POOR AND THE DISADVANTAGED. Certainly, if you are to approach many in the Country, including some of our University students to tell you what they know about their countrys national budget, you may find very few in that privilege position with some idea. I called it privilege because people just dont know what those details are and how those allotments in the budget affects them. Some may even think when we talk of a budget the money is readily available to be expensed. In every budget, there is a shift of burden: the source from which those monies will be accrued to make the projected expenditure as outlined, otherwise in the instance of some financial crises, there are budget shortfalls: meaning it is either difficult or virtually impossible for the government to honor its obligation as put in the budget. This makes it important in every budget to clearly define those discretionary and mandatory spendings of the government. So, we are not just to glad ourselves in the idea of billions put in the budget but how to meet those fiscal and monetary responsibilities as well. In the event where we have the political purpose dictating what should be in the budget without a critical look at the impacts on society, then we must prepare our beds for some inconveniences. No denying, Sierra Leone is still largely donor driven and the countrys major source of revenue being taxation. How much of those tax monies shall address our budget needs is the question. Here we have government taxing his ministers to subscribe 50% of their salaries toward the fight against the Ebola virus; how does this fit in what we expect from our recent supplementary budget? Im not being a pessimist, but always want to consider how justified we are as a nation in some decision taken by our government. The question is: why should we care about our national budget? Because it affects everybody and that the ordinary people have no clear idea how the government often spend their monies. This said, here is another shift: It remains a mission unaccomplished because a generation of people are yet to understand what is at stake. At the height of our war, the general belief was: the close of the war chapter should usher in a brown-new generation of leaders in our country; a relatively young, energetic, and innovative class of Sierra Leoneans having the skills, ability, and capacity to drive the development of this resource-pool nation, but did we achieve this? At the outset, we saw those institutions put in place, but where are they now? So many questions to answer given the current dispensation. It is difficult to understand and appreciate a democracy without press freedom or freedom of speech. You mean we are still to allow the old guards dictate how we are to run the affairs of our lives even when we are aware of how saturated their brains have become? No disrespect to them but its the plain truth. My argument is: until the transfer of leadership is complete in that tiny country, our challenges are still there. Happy week to all.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 15:00:36 +0000
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