Follow the money! :: Uwazi :: Twaweza.org

Kenya Budget Dashboard Launched

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 08:38:00 +0000

Twaweza East Africa launched the Kenya Budget Dashboard on June 18, 2012 in Nairobi. The launch brought together actors from the media, government agencies, civil society and other non-state individuals with an interest in budgets and public finance. The online Dashboard allows citizens to follow their tax money by seeing how the government allocates public funds.

‘Enhancing citizen’s access to information and platforms that promote transparency in the public sector is key to transforming their livelihoods. Active participation of ordinary citizens in budget decisions will transform public services,’ Twaweza Kenya Country Manager Nduko O’Matigere told Business Today at the launch. The popular Ghetto Radio lauded the Dashboard and the fact that it is accessible on mobile phones. The Bloggers Association of Kenya highlights the increased focus on infrastructure through government spending over the past decade in an article here, demonstrating the potential of the Dashboard to be used as a monitoring tool by ordinary citizens.

The Kenyan Dashboard can be found here and the Tanzanian Dashboard here. A Ugandan Budget Dashboard is in the works.

Follow Your Money: Kenya Budget Visualisation Dashboard

Thu, 31 May 2012 10:38:00 +0000

The Kenya Budget Visualisation Dashboard from Uwazi is now up. The site allows citizens to view how public funds were spent by financial year from 2002 to 2011, and within each county of the country.

Information about how the government spends tax money in Kenya is becoming much easier to access. With visualisations it is possible to show complex data in a format that is easy to absorb and understand. One can quickly get an impression of how the government allocates tax resources, and what’s more, no expertise in budget analysis is required.

Uwazi has developed this Budget Visualisation Dashboard, expected to be updated every year, to make information about the way the Kenyan Treasury allocates taxpayers' money more accessible: transparent, easy to understand and exciting to follow. The dashboard has been inspired in part by Where Does My Money Go, a similar project run by the Open Knowledge Foundation in the UK.

Click on the link here to go to the dashboard. Note that it may take some time to load. The Tanzania Budget Visualisation Dashboard can be viewed here and a similar dashboard for Uganda is currently being created.

Follow Your Money: Tanzania Budget Visualisation Dashboard

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 01:40:00 +0000

Information about how the government spends tax money in Tanzania is becoming much easier to access. However, the format in which it is presented, in reports or budget books, is often too bulky and complex to grasp. It can be a time consuming job to understand, and many people simply don't have time to invest in doing it.

With visualisations it is possible to show complex data in a format that is easy to absorb and understand. One can quickly get an impression of how the government allocates tax resources, and what’s more, no expertise in budget analysis is required.

Uwazi has developed this Budget Visualisation Dashboard, which will be updated every year, to make information about the way the Treasury allocates taxpayers money more accessible: transparent, easy to understand and exciting to follow. The dashboard has been inspired in part by Where Does My Money Go, a similar project run by the Open Knowledge Foundation in the UK.

Use this dashboard to decide whether you think there is a better way of allocating resources, and if you would like to talk about it with the policy makers, or try yourself if you are a policy maker already. Click on the link here, to go to the dashboard. Note that it may take some time to load.

Audit queries on spending not addressed by districts

Fri, 13 May 2011 11:37:00 +0000

Accountable governance of public resources means less audit queries that are not resolved. Many local government administrations in Tanzania fail in this area. The 2009/10 report of the Controller and Auditor General shows that money implied in audit questions that are not addressed in LGAs has hit 122 billion shillings, the highest in five years. Only five Councils did well during the last year by addressing all audit questions from previous years in 2009/10. These are not shown here. Check out which councils ignored audit questions in 2009/10.

Click here to go to an interactive site with visualizations of outstanding audit queries by district.

Budget document tracker

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 12:23:00 +0000

According to the Open Budget Survey 2010 report, Tanzania produced five (5) and released only three (3) out of the eight key documents to the public during the 2009-10 budget cycle. In 2011 Uwazi is tracking how many of the 8 key budget documents Tanzania will release to the public and the point in the budget cycle when they are released. Tanzania's budget year starts in July and ends in June of the following year. This table shows the timing of release of the key documents as suggested in best practice for budget transparency. Every time the a key budget report is released, Uwazi will report the date of publication and the relevant internet link to the report.

Transparency in Key Budget reports in Tanzania

June 2011

8th June 2011: The Minister for finance has tabled the Budget Speech for financial year 2011-12 to the parliament and published on the Ministry of Finance website the Budget Speech in English and Swahili together with a Summary of the Economic Survey (2010) and development Plan for 2011/12-2015/16.

Read the Budget Speech in English here

Read the Budget Speech in Swahili here

Read Economic Survey and five year development plan speech here

April 2011

12th April 2011: National Audit Office released the Audit Reports on Government operations for financial year 2009/10. Read the reports here

March 2011

28th March 2011: Ministry of Finance released Budget Guidelines for 2011/12. Read the publication here

Audit queries on spending not addressed by Central Government

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 12:39:00 +0000

Central Government entities in Tanzania fail the most in accounting for money they spend when compared to Local Governments. As a consequence they have large amounts of money involved in queries from the Auditor General. The 2009/10 report of the Auditor General shows that 483 billion shilling is implied in outstanding audit queries. Only a few, departments had no outstanding audit queries. These are not shown here

Click here to go to the interactive site with visualisations of outstanding audit queries in 2009/10 by Central Government entity.