Young leaders trained in budget formulation and fiscal transparency |24 June 2021

Twenty-five youths from Seychelles are attending a four-day virtual training (June 22-25) on budget formulation and fiscal transparency organised by Transparency Initiative Seychelles (TIS) and the U.S. embassy.

The training is being led by Michael Castro, a U.S. expert in budget transparency, participation, and accountability.

The United States and Seychelles have the shared goal of promoting fiscal transparency and encouraging the participation of young leaders in the budget formulation process. To help achieve this objective, the U.S. embassy has awarded a grant of $19,147 (R316,000) to TIS for the organisation of a four-day training led by Michael Castro.

During the training, participants will learn about the budget formulation process in Seychelles, and how to develop advocacy plans to become effective partners in the management of public resources, assets, and liabilities.

The project is supported by the U.S. Department of State’s Fiscal Transparency Innovation Fund (FTIF). These grants are part of the U.S. government’s long-standing efforts across Africa and globally to promote good governance, democracy, and transparency.

Judes E. DeBaere, chargée d’affaires, U.S. embassy to Mauritius and Seychelles addressed the youths at the launch of the session on Tuesday and commended them for taking the time to learn about this important process which is ‘budget formulation’.

Minister for Finance, Economic Planning & Trade, Naadir Hassan, also congratulated the youths and explained to them our budget process in Seychelles. “The government of Seychelles, through the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning & Trade, has reformed its budget process by fully adopting Programme Performance-Based Budgeting (PPBB) which is part of the Result-Based Management reform. The reform is aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public sector management while enhancing accountability and transparency. Prior to the reform, budget allocations made by the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) were based on incrementally providing annual funding for institutions and their input needs, rather than on making medium-term trade-offs between strategic policy priorities against national and lower order plans. In-year budget discipline below the aggregate level was weak, resulting in continuous budgeting at all levels, thereby undermining ex-ante processes. Institutions failed to provide systematic information to the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning & Trade and the legislature regarding their plans, priorities, results, targets and achievements. This, in turn, weakened the government’s ability to monitor and evaluate policy implementation and outcomes, as well as the legislature’s ability to practice oversight and hold the government to account.”

Minister Hassan further explained that PPBB comprises budgeting for and reporting on public expenditure by programme. These are structured according to the policy mandates of public sector institutions, while also taking into consideration their performance against national and priority objectives, as well as available financing. In this way, PPBB improves the effectiveness and efficiency of public expenditure allocation and operations. From an oversight perspective, PPBB provides better information about the link between the government’s policy priorities and plans, as well as the use of its resources, thus enhancing transparency. From a managerial perspective, less micro-management of resources by higher levels of the public sector hierarchy in return for policy results by the lower levels, thus greater accountability.”

Minister Hassan also thanked the U.S. embassy and TIS for making such a training possible for the youth of Seychelles.

During the four days, the participants will learn about National Planning Budget formulation, and Execution: the budget process in Seychelles; Budget documents in Seychelles; budget cycle, content and how to analyse budget documents; Transparency, accountability, and participation of youth in the budget process: actors in the Budget accountability ecosystem; Know your budget and Problem-Driven Budget Advocacy and Analysis for improved social accountability.

At the beginning of the training, the chairperson of TIS, Chrystold Chetty, encouraged the youths to participate fully in the seminar as they are the future of Seychelles.

The training ends tomorrow.

Vidya Gappy