EVALUATION IS A MUST

Madam President, it is impossible to do budgeting well without evaluation. In the case of national budgeting for the government, the evaluation of all sources and uses of funding is a must. Such necessity is realized mainly to obtain useful knowledge about mistakes made and how to correct them in ways that prevent the repetition of the past mistakes. As you know, this is essentially the method for preventing problems.

When one looks at the evaluation record in government immediately prior to the current administration of government, the urgent need for evaluation becomes very clear. The evaluation record on record is the report on the implementation of programs related to the realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This report indicates that Liberia will not be able to achieve the MDGs on time. Central to Liberia 's inability cited for not being able to realize the MDGs, as contained in the report, is the weak monitoring and evaluation mechanism of the government at the time.

Meeting this weak monitoring and evaluation record of government, it becomes entirely necessary for this government to give highest priority in practise to monitoring and evaluation. Most regrettably, this government has not as yet institutionalized an appropriate monitoring and evaluation system. The Ministry of Finance has provided some reports on expenditures of central government. However, these reports are not comprehensive and evaluational for the entirety of the government. For the government's budgeting to be most useful, there is urgent need to have evaluation or performance reports on all government entities, including public corporations, autonomous agencies and commissions. The reports should point out mistakes to facilitate their correction. Then the reports should present information on all human, financial and in-kind resources received for use by government during the relevant budget year. Some persons may think that this method is not a part of the conventional budget process. However, efficiency in budgeting under democratic institution-building does warrant the utilization of such comprehensive performance reports in the budget process.

Recently, after the visit of President George Bush, the United States Ambassador presented to the public information on nearly two billion United States dollars assistants that his government had already given as contribution to UNMIL, DDRR and national reconstruction. Such assistance should be registered in the budget process under the appropriate program areas of the government. Then the government can rightly report the totality of resources, own as well as external, budgeted and utilized in designated program areas of the government.

Additionally, as our foreign partners are trying to assist us in other areas such as good governance and capacity building, we need to have the budget process be fully informed about our partners are performing because this is only fair, as we are trying to follow their examples. We need to have access to their management and financial audits. These audits will help us to know many things. For example, was the Managing Director of the National Port Authority in March 2007 correct when he said that the GEMAP Comptroller at the NPA did not know how to produce a financial statement. In at true that this GEMAP Comptroller was only a games park manager with no accounting background? In it true that this GEMAP Comptroller is still working within our public sector? If all of the above questions were answered in the affirmative, how was he recruited? Why is he still being utilized as a GEMAP Comptroller? Other questions come up that remain crucial for the budget process. Was the amount of 200 million United States dollars spent on the training of slightly over 100 AFL recruits? What were the main categories of this expenditure? Did civic education figure prominently in the training? What was the content of the civic education? Did the training have instructors who are well grounded in the history of the military and other security forces of Liberia and demonstrated commitment to positive change? Did the training take place in an environment that is sustainable with respect to promoting loyalty to the Constitution of Liberia rather than loyalty to the whims of individuals, be they nationals or foreigners?

It is only right for the government to expect good governance practices from our partners who continue to set standards of good governance as “conditionality” for assistance, as seen with the “Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative” and the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA).

Since the beginning of the budget process under this government, I have been calling publicly for comprehensive performance reporting to be a part of the budget process. Most regrettably, such reporting has not been done to date, rendering it impossible for the government to avoid making basic mistakes as a general case. As we approach the 2008/09 budget year, let us remain hopeful that the government will produce and use comprehensive performance reports as basis for passing the budget.