BY LORETTA BRIGIDIA MANELE
ACCORDING to Roland Sikua, national parliament’s Chief Research Officer for the Library and Research department, budget briefs aims to inform and raise the level of debate when it comes to discussions on the budget.
Sikua was speaking at “Bringing the Budget Closer to Home”, a two day training session co-hosted by Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS) and the national parliament office for journalists and local media from Nov 29th -30th at the Paul Tovua Complex building in Honiara.
He said budget briefs are prepared by the parliamentary budget team which is headed by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) secretary and consists of staff from the Committee Secretariat and staff from the Library, Research and Information services of the national parliament.
Sikua expressed that these brief documents which they prepare for members of the PAC and members of parliament contain information such as trends of a ministry’s budget over the past four years, relevant SIG policy areas concerning or relating to the ministry and issues raised by the ministry in relation to the budget.
Assisting with the inquiry of the budget by the PAC is another role of the parliamentary budget team.
He said this involves a rapporteur during the inquiry, in other words, someone assigned to report the proceedings of the inquiry.
Sikua adds that they also compile issues and recommendations made by the committee (PAC) that are to be included in their report.
