Better Future Initiative, a youth-driven organization, has stepped up awareness aimed at increasing students’ participation in budget formulation and execution in Liberia.
The campaign, under the theme: “Know How The Liberian National Budget Works and Get Involved,” is sponsored by the World Bank through the Non-State Actor Department at the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning.
Speaking at the ceremony marking the beginning of the campaign, Program Coordinator Jemah Sharpe, disclosed that the campaign is intended to increase students’ participation in the formulation and execution of the national budget.
According to her, the campaign will enable students to understand how the national budget is generated, stressing the importance for the youth to form part of the usage of the national coffer.
Miss Sharpe explained the campaign has already been held at African Methodist Episcopal Zion University and Salvation Army Polytechnic in Monrovia and will also be taken to the University of Liberia and other higher institutions in Montserrado County.
Delivering a lecture at the campaign, a student from the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law, University of Liberia, Josephus Zogar, called on young people to right the wrongs in formulating and executing the national budget.
According to him, young people should not sit idly and allow politicians to decide partition of the national budget because their decision has a direct or indirect effect on the entire nation
Mr. Zogar hoped students will use the knowledge acquired from the lectures to reach out to their colleagues so they can have an idea about the national budget.
During the exercise, several students made several recommendations to strengthen and increase the national budget and reduce dependency on support from donor and international partners.
They recommended that the government increase support for agriculture to reduce millions spent on importing rice and other basic commodities.
They also want allotment for education to increase attract enrollment in higher institutions of learning, while others suggested the need to increase the purse for health in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic in Liberia and reports of other deadly diseases in the West African region. Editing by Jonathan Browne
