Last month Policy Forum met with the parliamentarians in Dodoma to advocate for the establishment of a Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), an independent non-partisan entity that will help strengthen the legislature’s oversight role in the budget process.

The MPs, mostly from the Tanzania Chapter of the African Parliamentarians' Network Against Corruption (APNAC), were told of the idea of the office which typically in other countires is under the auspices of the Office of Parliament. It does among other things, examines the budget proposal from the executive and enables MPs to come up with alternative budgets.

Presenting the concept and rationale for establishing the office, Johnson Kaijage of the Policy Forum Secretariat said that there was need to improve the capacity of MPs to be more proactive in the budget process and engage more meaningful with the executive particularly with regards to analyzing the proposals submitted to them in parliament.

Moreover, Kaijage said MPs needed more information to engage effectively in the process. At the moment, inadequate information was being provided and often too late to make meaningful inputs. He added that PBOs usually are designed to prepare economic forecasts that are independent of the executive, analyze budget proposals submitted by the executive, develop budget projections and prepare spending-cut options for legislative consideration.

He was cautious to make a distinction between a PBO and parliamentary committees. "The scope of work of committees is narrowed down to issues the committee is referred to by parliament. A PBO is more holistic in approach. Secondly, committees are inherently partisan as they are comprised of MPs with political affiliations. PBOs are nonpartisan and independent in nature," he said.

Kaijage also added that PBOs typically specialize in fiscal and financial analysis whereas committees are given a much broader range of issues to deal with regardless of whether the output contributes to the budget or not.

The members of parliaments warmed up to the idea. Hon. Zitto Kabwe said MPs are currently engaged in the process at a very late stage, meaning they cannot impact much after key decisions have been made. On top of that, MPs do not have a holistic view of the budget. They are currently focused on their respective committees hence they have a partial understanding and insight of the budget and cannot easily see how other sectors link up with their own or appreciate the inter-relatedness of the budget. Only members of the Finance and Economic Affairs Committee are able to see the budget in its entirety. The PBO will help MPs engage from the start and see fiscal matters in their entirety.

Hon. Hamad Rashid Mohamed said that the East Africa Community level, we are harmonizing our policies and procedures. Kenya and Uganda have PBOs. The logical step is others in the community to follow suit.  He stressed that a decision on the way forward had to be made on the same evening.

Hon. Augustine Lyatonga Mrema, Chairman of Parliamentary Local Authorities Accounts Committee, said MPs have inadequate capacity to engage in the budget. The PBO will help build that capacity.

In moving forward, the Parliamentarians nominated Hon. Faustine Ndungulile to coordinate the signing of a draft bill amongst the champion MPs and submission of the same to the Speaker.