SEND-GHANA, a policy research and social enterprise advocacy group, has commended government for publishing the 2015 Citizens Budget in English and in some local languages.

According to an article published on opengovguide.com, government budgets are filled with so many numbers and so much technical jargon that the ordinary readers cannot easily understand what they mean.

People need information in an accessible, understandable form to enable them to understand what government is doing with their money and allow them to participate in governmental affairs.

The International Monetary Fund in its Manual on Fiscal Transparency states that “A clear and simple summary guide to the budget should be widely distributed at the time of the annual budget.”

Such a ‘Citizens’ Budget’ serves the public, but can also serve the government by enhancing public knowledge about the budget and the reasoning behind the choices made in putting it together, opengovguide reported.

According to Daniel Adotey, a Programme Officer of SEND –GHANA, “this year’s Citizens Budget is an improvement on the previous ones. This year, the ministry has made provision for local languages so that many more Ghanaians would have the opportunity to read and understand how government intends to spend the state monies, and this must be commended.”

Citizens’ Budgets tend to present an accessible version of either the Budget Proposal or the Enacted Budget.

But producing a Citizens’ Budget can help a government to develop its capacity to make technical information more accessible, more broadly.

Please find link to citizens budget in English: http://www.mofep.gov.gh/sites/default/files/budget/2015%20Citizen%27s%20Budget-English.pdf

Source-SEND-GHANA