The Committee on Public Finance (CoPF) approved the Bill for the Parliamentary Budget Office pending one amendment.
The draft bill for the Parliamentary Budget Office was taken up for consideration at the CoPF meeting headed by Chairman Dr. Harsha De Silva on June 13.
Dr. Silva said that this legislation was long overdue and would inject some much-needed independence in the analysis process.
The Committee scrutinized key areas of the Bill and paid special attention to:
● The scope of the budget office with regards to evaluations done on economic cost and revenue generation only. There is no mandate to evaluate social impact.
● The selection process is through an advisory committee consisting of the Chairs of the Public Finance and Ways & Means Committees and the Deputy Speaker of Parliament. This advisory committee will help the Secretary General of Parliament shortlist candidates for selection by the Constitutional Council for the Parliamentary Budget Office.
● The ability of the Budget Office to stay consistent with the National Physical plan and disseminate information in strict compliance with the Act that ensures that no sensitive data of compromising nature would be shared.
● More transparency in New Provision for Aspiring Candidates.
Meanwhile, a new provision grants the ability for leaders of recognized political parties to forward their own party economic manifestos to the Budget Office for independent analysis.
This enables greater transparency and accountability by aspiring candidates who will have to have scientific methodology to their manifesto provisions.
Accordingly, the Chairman stressed that the Parliamentary Budget Office is an independent entity enshrined by legislature to analyze what has been proposed using alternative methodologies to see what the financial impact on the forecasts are.
The Bill was approved pending an amendment to present the budget of the Budget Office within 60 days.
