Dialogue on budgeting: timely release of funds to help complete uplift projects

Consultative dialogue called for mechanism of social accountability for fair and equitable budget allocation and utility for public service delivery. Representatives of academia and government departments emphasized the need based budgeting allocation and timely delivery of funds to complete the development schemes in time to address the grievance of the citizens.
This was discussed in a Consultative session with academia, government officials on Sustainable Development Goal 16-6; accountability for good governance, strong institutions and accountability of budget organized by Sindh Community Foundation under TABEER Program at local hotel of Hyderabad.
The participants were among the academicians and government officials and civil society discussed various dimensions and issues of gaps in implementation of the SDGs including accountability, budget making processes and utility process and citizens' participation.
Dr Ghulam Ali Jariko for SDSC of University of Sindh Jamshoro was the view that all social problems lined with poverty so the all 15 SDGs would contribute towards the achievement the SDG 16 - access to justice, strong institutions, transparent institutions and peace full and inclusive society. He said that 40% budget not utilized annual compare to actual budget estimated.
Professor Ismaeel Kumbhar of Sindh Agriculture University and Professor Shahab Mughal of Sindh development studies centre said that mostly budgets are made without knowing the ground realities and scale of the social problems. They said the citizen must be consulted in budget making processes, there is need to cover a large number of citizens from different backgrounds in this regard.
Naseer Mirza emphasized on elimination of corruption because budgets are annually provided but even pure water is not provided to the citizens, people are compelled to drink unhygienic water and foods which is threatening their lives. The participants demanded the involvement of citizens in process of budget making and tracking of the utility of budgets from bottom to top level.