Parliament Engages Citizens in Reviewing the National Budget

	The Budget Analysis Office is a model of partnership successes with USAID in Morocco!

USAID/Morocco Parliament Support Project and the Budget Analysis Office (BAB) of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Morocco organized a historic conference on parliamentary oversight of the national budget.

The conference established linkages between majority and opposition leaders, who publicly concurred on their shared interest to pursue substantial reforms to expand the role of Parliament in the national budget cycle. The daylong event featured presentations of key representatives of diverse levels of Moroccan government, civil society organizations, the Arab Parliamentary Union, and selected experts as part of its inclusive approach to engage citizens in the discussion of the national budget cycle.

The representation of citizens in parliamentary processes, whom the majority leader stated is “an added value to parliamentary work,” was extended to the working groups formed to continue deliberating and revising the draft organic law of finance study presented during the conference.

The participants emphasized the importance of the BAB, which a key tool to ensure an effective and efficient follow up of the national budget, and a non-political institution that serves all MPs to “face the executive bureaucracy”. Within the same context, the president of the Upper House announced that the BAB budget for FY 2009 will be doubled to fulfil its role as an independent directorate.

MPs discussed substantial reforms to the organic law of finance, commonly named the “constitution of the budget”. The participants’ corner stone vision for the reform expanded the inclusion of Parliament in budget cycle to total evaluation of annual budget execution prior to adopting a new annual budget.

The Upper House president and MPs stated that the BAB is a “model of partnership with USAID and an example of effectiveness and efficiency for the other administrative units in the Moroccan parliament.”