Books - Hamada Farag:
A report issued by Partners for Transparency confirmed that the Egyptian government approved the budget for the fifth year in a row in the absence of parliament, after the January 2011 revolution, and with the exception of the fiscal year 2012/2013, in which parliament participated in part in approving its general budget, all budgets Others, including the budget for the next fiscal year 2015/2016, were approved without presenting to the elected body that is constitutionally mandated to approve the budget.
The "Partners for Transparency" Foundation added that the Egyptian government approved, at the end of last week, the state budget for the fiscal year 2015/2016, in preparation for submitting it to the President of the Republic, for approval. Apart from the budget details that require in-depth and objective analysis, the Foundation believes that the engineer’s government Ibrahim Mahlab was not keen on providing mechanisms for community participation in the process of preparing the state's general budget, as political alignment required the government to overcome the parliament’s absence gap by more involvement of national stakeholders in discussing the budget and arranging its priorities and biases.
Although Partners for Transparency praises some of the measures taken by the Ministry of Finance, prior to preparing the budget, specifically the issuance of the Citizen Budget Manual, and the issuance of a preliminary budget statement explaining the general framework within which the budget is prepared, and considers that they are good steps calculated for the Ministry, but it reserves the right not to allocate Sufficient time to discuss the budget in the mass media, before it is approved by the Council of Ministers and submitted to the President of the Republic.
The Foundation calls on the Ministry of Finance to issue a simplified guide for the state budget for the fiscal year 2015/2016, which includes specific numbers related to revenues and expected spending items, in order to achieve the required transparency principle, and to enable citizens to hold government authorities accountable during the next fiscal year.