P2 billion supplementary budget: epitome of budget indiscipline
Dithapelo Keorapetse | Friday December 12, 2014 11:09
In the Westminster type of system like Botswana, parliament holds the ‘power of the purse’, that is to say it must sanction all expenditures, all borrowings from national, regional or international financial institutions, and all revenues to be collected by the government. In other words, parliament in a democracy has the power to amend or approve public money related Bills. Therefore, it is parliament that has to, authorise the supplementary budget.
There are a number of things that raise eyebrows about the supplementary budget in Botswana in general and the recent one presented by the Minister in particular. As stated above, the Minister has requested parliament to approve over P2 billion supplementary money for various ministries, government departments and agencies financial requirements. This amount is colossal. Ordinarily, supplementary budgets are meant for emergency cases and or unforeseen pressing financial needs. The problem is that there is failure by the government to operate within the originally allocated budget and this points to deterioration in the country’s budget discipline.
The time allocated to parliament, including debates on the same and deliberations and scrutiny by the Finance and Estimates Committee of parliament, detracts from the role of parliament as a body charged with the power of the purse. The Finance and Estimates Committee was given little time of few days to consider the proposal by the Minister. Therefore, the end result is that the supplementary budget passed through parliament, not passed by it. Not according parliament, including its oversight committees, adequate time to scrutinise the budget and cross examine government accounting officers is tantamount to rubberstamping executive decisions on the public money.
It should be noted that there is a trend of government departments returning money back to the treasury after asking for huge amount of money. For instance, in the last five years or so over P6, 9 billion has been returned to the public treasury as unused money. It is improbable that some government departments would have exhausted the money they asked for as supplements in the three months before the next budget in February. Some proposals for supplementary money are in all fairness not urgent, unreasonable in as far as they ask for huge amounts and unsustainable in the long run. Fiscal discipline and or prudent management of economic resources, which has underpinned Botswana’s economic trajectory leading to relative economic prosperity is waning if the 2014/15 supplementary budget is anything to go by.
Transparency and accountability are key tenets of democracy and key to government budgeting process. Lack of transparency and accountability in defence and security matters has been a source for concern. For a very long time, defence and security matters have been defined by the executive with parliament playing a minimal role of rubberstamping military and security budget proposals and other decisions. The realm of defence and security is unjustly shrouded in secrecy.
Basic information continues to be ascetically denied the public and media, not even Parliament discusses large arms or security purchases. The advent of the DIS has increased spending on security and people are becoming apprehensive. There is a need to scrutinise defence and security budget requirements without being constrained by the obsession about secrecy. Terms such as “operational requirements” ought to be unpacked with more details being provided to know what is being procured or budgeted for.
Political business cycle which denotes the use of more money during election time by the government to try to please the people through, for instance, pet projects or more social safety nets is in part the reason why we have a bloated supplementary budget. We need, as a country, to be careful about political business cycle as it has far reaching implications on the economy in general and budgets in particular.
Economic growth and development in Botswana has been state lead, determined and directed, with the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning serving as the economic high command, generating policy and taking an aggressive role in planning investment, against the background of a fairly passive parliament.
Politicians in parliament are supposed to formulate policies including shaping the budget and the rest of the state apparatus, namely the civil service, police and military, implement these policies.
The bureaucracy, encouraged by the political heads in the finance ministry, highly influence the budget with parliament playing a minimal role. Politics is about who gets what, where, when and why; it is about distribution of the national cake and that should be the work of parliament. The chief of our economic high command Hon. Minister of Finance has to plug the supplementary budget loopholes before it gets worse.