This week starting Tuesday the 30th, Parliament held a workshop for Members of Parliament (MPs) on the analysis of the 2015/2016 Botswana National Budget at the Gaborone International Conference Center. Officially opened by the Speaker of the National Assembly, the seminar featured the Minister of Finance and Development Planning Kenneth Matambo, his juniors at the ministry and the Botswana Institute of Development Policy Analysis and former Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee as resource persons. This piece doesn’t in anyway seek to pre-empt the finance minister as the writer is privy to some of the information. The workshop sought to assist MPs with knowledge, skills or tools to interrogate the budget proposal by the minister. It has also, in part, answered the above captioned question. Macroeconomic framework, macroeconomic outlook, revenue forecast, overview of the national budget, budget management, the role of parliament in driving implementation of development programmes/projects, budget analysis and revenue analysis were some of the topic covered at the workshop. An argument could be made that it was an important colloquium for a subject that is technical to some if not most MPs.
The budget is very important as it answers the fundamental political question of who gets what, where, when and perhaps how. For our case, the national annual budget purports to further Botswana’s development goals espoused in both the National Development Plan (and Districts Development Plans) and Vision 2016.
