The community of Portuguese Speaking African Countries (PALOP) and Timor-Leste now has an online platform called “e-budget”, and which brings together the EMBs of all member countries of the community, an unprecedented initiative financed with 4,5 million euros by the European Union.
The launch act of the technological solution, last month, was witnessed by the head of the European Union delegation in Angola, Jeannette Seppen, by the resident representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Edo Stork, and representatives of civil society and the Angolan State, where the main technical advisor of the Pro PALOP-TL ISC, Ricardo Gomes, said that this is the first worldwide platform that brings together six countries in the same digital space, presenting the State budgets and their execution up to the general account, in a simple and interactive way.
Speaking to journalists, Ricardo Gomes also informed that the platform allows any citizen to quickly understand where the Government has invested more resources in the execution of the budget and to do this in a very simple way. On the other hand, informed the official, the platform will also have a budget transparency index, which shows three simple indicators.
“If the data is presented openly, that is, in Excel-like formats, easy to manipulate, if the reports are published on time, if people have information in a timely manner and if the information in them is detailed enough for us to understand where is where the money really goes”, said Ricardo Gomes.
According to the editors of MenosFios apuros, in recent days there has been training work for civil society organizations and two focal points from the Ministry of Finance, the national budget department, “so that this small group of organizations knows how to operate the platform, knows how to fetch budget data and put them on the platform and knows how to prepare the transparency index that is there, for fully public access without any restriction”.
The civil society organizations that will work on this project are already partners in the Program for the Consolidation of Economic Governance and Public Finance Management Systems in PALOP-TL (Pro PALOP-TL), funded by the European Union and managed by UNDP.
“We work with civil society organizations in Angola that have been working on the issue of public participation in the budget process, namely ADRA, CICA, Mosaiko and Plataforma das Mulheres Angolanas”, added the technical adviser.
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Still on this path, Jeannette Seppen said that the program aims to empower civil society in its budget control role, through an online platform, which is “crucial for civil society to be able to improve its role in this regard”.
“We are funders of this program for all PALOP-TL, implemented by UNDP and it is part of our partnership, with more than millions of euros, for three and a half years”, revealed Seppen.
The head of the European Union delegation referred that she sees advances from Angola, “but it is always very important, as in all countries in the world, that also in Angola and the PALOP-TL, civil society has this ability to help and analyze the General State Budget”, he underlined.
