Citizen participation in Budget process is very important and there is need to encourage those practicing it, Activities like people to pleople exchanges may work well in advancing the general undersatnding by the duty barres and challenge the right holders to demand more and more accountability on the state to account
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The World Social Forum, is just on from 6th to 11th 2011 in Dakar Senegal
The Chapter on public finance under the new Constitution of Kenya provides one of the most challenging for those who will wish to engage in shaping the jurisprudence on budget allocation as a tool of achieving the realization of economic and social rights especially for the most marginalized. Openness and accountability including public participation in public financial matters are declared as fundemantal principles. How these will be translated into concrete practice of course remains a moot point especially when one takes into account that the country is coming from a system that had elevated corruption and lack of accountability into a virtue. The creation of the equalization fund is yet another interesting development. The fund is supposed to be used exclusively for the provision of services including water, roads, health facilities and electricity to marginalized areas so as to bring equality of those services in those areas to the level generally enjoyed by the rest of the nation. Again a very laudable aim. How do begin to fully equip ourselves with the technical knowldege to enable to effectively challange the Government if this is not done? That is the begin question. The provision creates a definate benchmark so there will be no room for arguing as to whether we should apply the reasonable or the mimimum core content test. Finally the creation of the Commission on Revenue Allocation has radically altered the manner in which allocation of public funds is done in the country. The omnipresent powers hitherto enjoyed by the mandarins at the Treasury has been dismantled, at least on paper. Vigilance accompanied with relevant information and knowledge will however be required to move this from rhetoric to reality. The ball is squarely in our court and as Justice Albie Sachs ( as he then was)of the Constitutional Court of South Africa once said "the chicken have come home to roost" for kenyans who advocated for the inclusion of economic and social rights in the Consitution. A lot of help will be required from out there; from our colleagues who trod this path before us.
