The willpower of the people should be reflected and respected in the budget making process, the budget distribution is the main area that needs to be addressed to respect that will. The voters must have an occasion to precisely express their will for the distribution of tax money. Voters, through the legislators in the Parliament should be able to decide how much tax will be imposed on them and what their amount of tax money will be spent on and who will manage it. Every elector should be able to influence an equal amount of money, no matter how much they contribute to total tax amount for the whole country.
When voting an MP may agree with a certain amount of policies of the treasury bench, and disagree with a certain amount. So, in a traditional democratic voting process, when he votes, he is forced to partially support something he does not. Voters could still, as they did until now, vote for a particular party. Therefore they cannot, if they wanted to, choose very precisely where their amount of tax money would be spent and who they trust to spend it in the chosen direction.
In a democratic society, the division of resources between the public and private sectors is barely determined by the desires of the legislators, because it is such a complex and time-consuming task to acquire adequate political information, the legislator is chronically ignorant of the costs and benefits of many actual and potential government policies. However, this ignorance causes governments to enact budgets smaller or bigger than the ones they would enact if the legislators possessed complete information. Yet these under or over sized budgets stem from rational behavior by both the government and the electorate; hence they remain difficult to remedy. Furthermore, the resulting misallocation of resources becomes more and more serious as the economy grows more complex.
As concerned citizens, they need and have the right to know how tax is being imposed and how their tax money are being spent. They need to understand why it is sometimes so hard to fund social programs that benefit the community, like the quality education and affordable health services for the sake of allocating huge amount for non transparent expenditures or for misusing. But most of the people are not accountants.
The budget document is hard to understand to the average citizens. If they can't understand it and no one can explain it, how are they going to know if their money is being used well? How are they going to hold their elected representatives accountable? The issue of participatory budgeting should come in forefront. Participatory budgeting is a process of democratic deliberation and decision-making, and a type of participatory democracy, in which ordinary people decide how to allocate part of a public budget. Participatory budgeting should allow citizens to identify, discuss, and prioritize public spending projects, and gives them the power to make real decisions about how money is spent.
The insights regarding the opportunities for and barriers to accomplishing the goal of democratic budgeting are needed to be reckoned. It takes leadership to flatten the organizational structure and make conscious ethical responsibilities as individuals and as parliamentary committee members try to achieve the democratic goals means that the media should be present for the public, and yet the presence of the press inhibits the procedural need for robust discussion.
Or, while representation is a cornerstone to public budgeting, if the lobbying group being so large has an effect on the efficiency of the group. Democratic budgeting may also struggle to overcome existing clienteles. It may also comprehend that particular groups are less likely to participate once their demands have been met and that slow progress of public works can frustrate participants.
During their presentation in the Parliament, the legislators often uphold their voice saying: "We envision a budget process for the country that includes opportunities for community members to communicate needs and priorities of the people who develop the budgets, a process that educates citizens about the revenues and expenditures, a process that is based on a shared understanding of people's responsibilities as citizens of the country and a process that increases accountability."
Budget decision making has always been an internal and confidential process, essentially a negotiation between the Ministry of finance and Ministerial heads, with almost no input from citizens, economists , civil society and think tank researchers. Legislators themselves have expressed frustration over having little involvement in budget formulation.
There is hardly public hearing where citizens can comment on the budget, but it comes at the end of the process, when only cuts can be made and the document itself is used for operating purposes, not for reporting to the people. The primary challenge is to make a national budget that should have been shaped by citizens' needs and priorities. Contained in this are more far-reaching challenges to changing the nature of the economic life - catalyzing meaningful public participation in such decision-making processes, and sustaining the democratic will to support and drive the transformation.
Participation in public life should be about much more than casting ballots. It should include face-to-face decision-making processes, giving people the opportunity to learn about policy issues and to practice skills like debate and compromise that are so important to democratic life. There must be a shared vision for the country's future and a recognition that the national budget reflects and finances this vision.
To fundamentally change the old way of making budget, there has to be greater reflection of political will, combined with widespread public support and movement. Political will rarely springs spontaneously into being, but grows from steady public pressure and accountability. It also grows from shared experiences between the rule or decision maker and citizens who, working together towards common goals, build productive relationships and trust. Their ultimate goal should be to fundamentally change the social environment, so that citizens' voices determine the process and the outcomes of decisions that shape public life.
It is the season of the national budget. The focus of discussion within and outside Parliament is about allocation, spending, taxation and reform. Missing from the public discourse is a conversation about national development policies, fiscal measures, foreign borrowings etc. Parliament must be the focal point of democracy. It shoulders the responsibility of enacting a robust legal framework and holding the government accountable.
The houses of Parliament are also supposed to be at the forefront of thought leadership on policy issues. The greatness of Parliament lies not just in its majestic building, but is derived from and sustained by the quality of debates that take place inside it, but on its deliberations, resulting in effective governance frameworks.
The writer is former Secretary and Chairman, NBR
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