The National Treasury has invited the public to make comments on the country’s Fiscal Policy in its pre-budget consultation process.
South Africa is one of five pilot countries that are participating in the Fiscal Openness Accelerator Project (FOA) that was launched in 2019 by the International Budget Partnership (IBP) and the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT).
In a statement on Thursday, the Treasury said the project’s overall objective is to build the technical capacity of selected governments, enhance fiscal transparency and to support the implementation of a public participation pilot in the national budget cycle.
“This is the second and final year of the FOA pilot and a slightly different approach will be taken. This year, we will focus on written submissions on a broad range of themes.
“An online platform will be provided for respondents to discuss and debate issues raised in the submissions. The written inputs will be analysed and the recommendations will be shared with Medium-Term Expenditure Committee (MTEC).”
The Treasury said all submissions would be published on the Vulekamali budget data portal.
“The lessons drawn from the two-year pilot will be used for future developments of public participation in the budget process,” it said.
Submissions of a maximum of ten pages, including an abstract and a conclusion with specific recommendations, should be emailed to FOAsubmissions@treasury.gov.za by 19 August 2022.
Guiding themes:
(a) Fiscal policy (debt management, budget deficit)
(b) Cross cutting (climate change financing, gender responsive budgeting)
(c) Topical Issues
- · Unemployment
- · Social security funding
- · Energy choices and fiscal subsidies
- · Safety and crime
- · Health
- · Food security
The department urged the public to complete the biographical and contact information when submitting, so that it could be contacted.
Written submissions can be submitted on one or more themes by 19 August 2022 to FOAsubmissions@treasury.gov.za .
“Citizens without access to emails can drop off their clearly written submissions at the National and Provincial Treasury offices.
“The National Treasury is responsible for Fiscal Policy. Therefore, public consultation is not intended to inform sector policy priorities as this goes beyond the mandate of the National Treasury, which is to ensure transparency, accountability and sound financial controls in the management of public finances,” it said.