SAHIWAL: Around 38pc of sanctioned posts in the district budget branches in 34 districts of Punjab are lying vacant. This and non-participation of the public in budget-making are major reasons for poor budget planning at district level.

This was discussed in a workshop organised by Citizen Network for Budget Accountability (CNBA) at a local hotel on Tuesday. The CNBA is a network of 50 registered civil society organisations across Pakistan tracking budget processes in 34 districts of Punjab.

The CNBA published a report, titled ‘Study of budget making process at district level in Punjab’, which was shared with workshop participants by Alweera Rashid, resource person from CNBA’s partner organisation, Centre for Peace Development Initiative. Two district budget findings were not included in the report because the administration of Bhakkar and Lodhran refused to share information with the CNBA team.

The meeting was told that district governments had miserably failed in invoving all stakeholders in the budget-making process. There are 15 districts in Punjab that have not held pre-budget consultation with multiple stakeholders. These consultations are mandatory according to the District Budget Rules 2003 but most of the consultation was done with different district officers and elected representatives.

“No consultation was done with citizens and other stakeholders, which is a clear violation of budget rules,” Alweera further said.

Under the 2003 rules, stakeholders include “councilors, elected representatives, general public, women’s organisations, private sector, citizen community boards, district mushawrat committees and local NGOs”.

The report stated that there were only eight districts which had websites and among them only four posted their budgets during last three years. None of the districts were able to issue pre-budget statements.

Shoaib Akbar, a coordinator, told Dawn that until citizens were given access to budget-making processes none of the development schemes could be formulated.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2016