3 Takeaways From Our Webinar on Leveraging Budget Data for CSOs
On Feb. 9, the TTEITI hosted its first webinar for Civil Society Organisations for the new year. The goal of the event, led by assistant lecturer Ms Malini Maharaj from the Department of Economics at the University of the West Indies, was to provide CSOs with the tools and the knowledge to find, understand and leverage data from the national budget.
Introducing the discussion, Ms Maharaj reminded participants of the three key elements of a good budget process: transparency, oversight and public participation.
Trinidad and Tobago’s budget, however, doesn’t score well on international indexes for transparency which poses several problems also in terms of accountability and participation.
Here are three takeaways from the webinar.
There's more to the budget than the budget statement
When reviewing the national budget, one common mistake is to think about it only in terms of the budget statement. While the budget statement is certainly the most popular document, the national budget comprises at least twelve other documents with important and useful information for CSOs.
The call circular, for example, is distributed to ministries before the beginning of the budget process to assess what they anticipate are going to be their needs. Draft estimates of revenues and expenditures are also important documents for CSOs to access, particularly those related to the social sector.
Different organisations would focus on different aspects, of course, depending on their interests and needs. However, thoroughly understanding all the documents that make up the national budget can help CSOs gain a better insight into the allocation of public money.
CSO participation is critical
Despite the enormous potential of leveraging data from the national budget, one of the main issues with the national budget process remains the lack of CSO participation. With the available data from the national budget CSOs would be able to hold the government to account for how taxpayer dollars are spent.
But by joining together, they could do even more. In the webinar, Maharaj stressed the importance of public participation as one of the fundamental preconditions for budget reform. By increasing the oversight that civil society exercises over public spending, the government will be better equipped to budget for policy measures that respond to the actual needs of the population. More transparency also means less corruption and waste of public money.
TTEITI remains committed to transparency
Transparency in revenue allocation is one of TTEITI’s main areas of work. More transparency in revenue allocation enables citizens to track whether the money from tax or resource revenues ends up in the national budget or is distributed to other funds or government entities.
The series of webinars organised by TTEITI and its upcoming digital resource titled A Guide to the Trinidad and Tobago Budget for Civil Society Organisations are part of an effort to build technical capacity among CSOs. With the knowledge and the tools to leverage budget data and hold the government accountable, CSOs will be able to advocate for budget reforms that are more open and transparent.
As Maharaj said at the webinar: "Development is the connection between what we have and what we can do with what we have."
Note: In the video above, Maharaj’s presentation starts around the 5-min mark.
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