The deputy speaker of the National Assembly Hon. Momodou L.K Sanneh recognizes the important of the need for Social Protection in our national budget, nothing that “Social protection should be constitute key priorities in our national budget
Hon. Sanneh made this remark on Tuesday 9, October, 2018, at a local hotel in Kololi, while officially declaring a three day consultative workshop for members National Assembly select committees on Health and Education opened, with relevant government agencies and departments.
The join advocacy activities on social protection for increase national budget allocation to child protection are funded by UNICEF, which seeks among others to establish consultative information sharing between the lawmakers with relevant Ministries/sectors on budget execution relating to social protection and child protection programmes in 2018.
According to Hon. Sanneh, the forum is geared towards increase national budget allocation to child protection programmes.
He added that rationale behind the event is to establish a consultative process which seeks to initiate a mid-term expenditure review framework on the implementation of child protection and Social protection programmes approved in the 2018 Budget.
The Deputy Speaker of the house noted what he called engagement with important sectors in the course of three days , would enable them understand and appreciate matters such as how sectors spent funds allocated to them, on child and social protection programmes.
“It will also initiate reporting and feedback mechanism on expenditures relating to social protection and child protection issues. The consultation will also serve as an advocacy tool for increased budget allocation to both heath and education sectors’, the deputy speaker told the audience.
He further about purpose of the interactive meeting meant to advance hopes of creating visibility of issues affecting children, women and vulnerable people and as to what measures government is taking to address those challenges.
For Hon Sanneh, in order to achieve the cited objectives, we must strengthen the committee operations system and apply the tools relevant for effective oversight functions.
He described the exercise as an opportunity for the Health and Education committees of National Assembly to access valuable information, which will be used to monitor and evaluate the impact of expenditures on child protection and social protection related programmes.
Author; Amadou Bah
