THE ROLE OF NON-STATE ACTORS’ OVERSIGHT AND SCRUTINY IN PUBLIC FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT REFORM IN SIERRA LEONE

The Government of Sierra Leone has been taking conscious steps towards the improving and reforming its financial management practices. Various diagnostic studies and assessments have been conducted to gauge the performance of these reforms, and to offer remedial measures aimed at improving the government’s financial management practices’ overall. Some of these studies include the Country Profile Financial Accountability (CPFA) (December 2001), the Country Financial Accountability Assessment (CFAA) (March 2002) and the two (internal and external) 2007 Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessments.

Individual laws and regulations covering Public Financial Management (PFM) implement the general provisions of the Constitution. These are described in the relevant indicator and include:

• The Local Government Act, 2004 and supporting Statutory Instrument

• National Commission for Privatisation Act 2002.

• The Government Budgeting and Accountability Act, 2005

• Financial Administration Regulations (replaced by the Financial Management

Regulations of June 2007)

• National Revenue Authority Act, 2003

• Public Procurement Act, 2004

The findings and the recommendations of the various studies and assessments contributed to the development of a consolidated Public Financial Management National Action Plan (PFM-NAP). With support from its Development Partners (EU, DFID, IDA, and AfDB), the Government of Sierra Leone developed the Integrated Public Financial Management Reform Project (IPFMRP).

The objective of the Public Financial Management (PFM) reform agenda is to support the achievement of fiscal discipline, strategic and efficient allocation and use of funds, value for money and probity in the use of public resources. With the launch of the Integrated Public Financial Management Reform Project (IPFMRP) in February 2010, and now the Non-State Actors oversight component of the project, the Sierra Leone government is bracing itself up for financial probity, transparency and accountability, whilst at the same time opening up governance for Non-State Actors’ participation in state matters.

The IPFMRP has five main components, (with sub-components under some of these five key components.)

Component 1 - Strengthening Macrofiscal Coordination and Budget Management

Component 2 - Reinforcing the Control System for Improved Service Delivery

Component 3 - Strengthening Central Finance Functions

Component 4 - Assisting Non-state Actors’ Oversight

Component 5 - Project Management

One of the key components of the IPFMRP is the coordination of Non State Actors’ oversight and scrutiny of public financial management.

To borrow from the Project Appraisal Document (PAD), of the Integrated Public Financial Management Reform Project (IPFMRP) …”this component will support the development of the analytic and dissemination capacity of civil society and Non-State Actors (NSAs) in exercising scrutiny over the use of public resources, as well as building a constituency for Public financial management (PFM) reforms….”

The intermediate outcome of the Non-State Actors’ oversight component is the development of analytic and dissemination capacity of civil society and Non-State Actors (NSAs) in exercising scrutiny over the use of public resources, as well as building a constituency for Public financial management (PFM) reforms. To achieve this, a baseline (lack of capacity and a forum for an institutionalized and systematic approach to public financial management oversight by Non-State Actors) has been established, with annual targets monitoring and gauging progress over time. The component’s intermediate outcome is related to the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessments indicator (PI -11) of Sierra Leone 2007.

The implementation strategy of the Non-State Actors’ (NSAs) oversight component has a two prong approach and provides a combination of both supply driven and demand driven activities. The supply driven sub-component will focus on supporting the NSAs on issues relating to building capacity and establishing networks for information sharing, learning and growth in the practice of public financial management (PFM) reform activities. These activities will include (but are not limited to) the following;

1) the creation of a network for information sharing and collaboration among NSAs and government on PFM issues, including a forum where both government and NSAs could meet regularly to discuss PFM issues (this process has already begun with the bringing together of directors and unit heads within the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED) and Non-State Actors which initiated the process of engagement between state and non-state actors)

2) the preparation and dissemination of PFM information materials at national and sub-national (local Councils) governmental levels, involving the simplification of government documents on PFM (eg budgets, findings from the Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys PETS, quarterly financial statements, Audit reports, procurement regulations and plans etc)

3) NSA capacity building on PFM so as to provide Non-State Actors with the required skills set and wherewithal to achieve a comprehensive understanding of public financial management, and

4) support for the administration of the sub-grant (ie for the demand driven sub-component). This sub-grant will actually support both the recruitment of a Sub-grant Evaluation Agent and the preparation of an NSA Sub-grant Manual. The Manual will specify inter alia, the rules of access and eligibility criteria, the approval procedures and the administrative arrangements between the government of Sierra Leone and selected NSAs.

On the demand driven sub-component, funding may be secured from the sub-grant to support demand driven activities relating to public financial management. These will include but also not limited to:

1) analyses and monitoring of the national and local government budgets at various stages of the budget preparation, approval and execution circle.

2) support for advocacy activities and dissemination of information on all aspects of public financial management at the national and local government levels, and build a constituency for public financial management reforms.

3) media training for journalists on covering government budget (government revenue and expenditure matters) and other public financial management related issues.

It is against this background ladies and gentlemen, that all are invited to join the development of the analytic and dissemination capacity of civil society and Non-State Actors (NSAs) in exercising scrutiny over the use of public resources, as well as building a constituency for Public financial management (PFM) reforms in Sierra Leone. I look forward to your thoughts and comments.