Civil Society Seminar: ‘Time for advocacy is October, not June’

Civil society needs to start lobbying the government for budgetary proposals while the budget is being drawn up.

LAHORE:

Civil society needs to start lobbying the government for budgetary proposals between October and March while the budget is being drawn up rather than wait till June, learned participants in a seminar at the Ambassador Hotel on Wednesday.

“The right time for advocacy and pressuring the government is from October to March,” said Dr Imdad Hussain, a professor at FC College. “But unfortunately civil society does not get a chance to go through the pre-budget documentation due to the confidentiality policy of government departments.”

He said that parliamentarians also knew little because they were given the 2,000-page budget and technical documents a day before the budget announcement. “It is almost impossible for the parliamentarians to analyse the budget statements in so short a time period,” he said.

Dr Hussain noted that under the Freedom of Information Ordinance 2002, people had a right to know the government’s budget policy. The event, titled ‘Development budget  advocacy challenges for civil society’, was arranged by Punjab Lok Sujag, the South Asia Partnership-Pakistan and Church World Services.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2011.