By Africa 24 Parliamentary reporter

Members of Parliament will today Monday 2nd December, 2024 commence National Budget scrutiny of various Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

The Office of the Clerk of Parliament says it wishes to inform Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of Government, that the Supplies Committee will commence its work on budget scrutiny.

The notice stated that, MDAs are required to return questionnaires and should appear in Parliament as per their schedules in order to defend their budgetary allocations for the next financial year, commencing January, 01, 2025.

Failure to attend the scrutiny process relating to same will result in the withholding of budgetary allocations for the next financial year, 2025 to authorize expenditure for the services of the Republic of Sierra Leone, the notice reads.

It could be recalled that, Parliament has been involved in controlling the supply of money ever since.

A mixture of legislation and long-standing constitutional convention allows it to grant or deny the government the right to levy taxes and spend public money.

However, these powers have also changed over time, and at present, they are far weaker in practice than their history would suggest.

The current scrutiny on taxation and spending by the legislature is typically broken down into two main categories: scrutiny before the money is spent (“ex-ante”) and scrutiny after it is spent (“ex-post”).

Parliament’s scrutiny before spending is somewhat limited. It captures:Spending Reviews, at which the government lays out its spending plans for the next few years, budgets and other financial statements, at which taxation measures are announced and spending plans are updated.

Also, the Estimates process, in which Parliament approves spending for the current financial year.