By Mohamed Konneh
The Budget Advocacy Network (BAN) on Thursday 13th August 2026 engaged members of the media and cross section of Civil Society Organizations on the revised Public Financial Management Act 2016 that is under review. The meeting was held at BAN’s head office, Hill Station in Freetown bringing together media practitioners on Public Financial Management and civil society actors under one roof.
Speaking during the engagement, BAN Cordinator, Abu Bakarr Kamara said with the revised PFM Act there are concerns raised noting that the revise document has about seven gaps they have identified.
These gaps include, no deadline for parliament to act on audit reports, no timeline for finance to implement PAC recommendations, local council audit reports not required to be online, local council budgets and financial reports not published, national fiscal documents lack a publication framework, no annual tax exemption and waiver report, and that donor funded expenditure poorly disclosed.
The BAN Cordinator noted that each gap turns a disclosure duty into an administrative gesture and that fixing them makes oversight measurable.
He said there should be a clear line on the implementation of the PAC reports.
The revised PFM Act he said is key to transparency and accountability and the need for both the media and civil society to engage the process.
The old act having 126 sections has now been improved to 143 sections. There are several new section including new provision introduced that recognizes carbon related market. The new definition incorporated to match up with the subject-matter and that Climate Finance is defined and incorporate climate financing into PFM.
There is also another new provision that provides legal basis for Climate Finance Fund. This new provision introduced is to enable climate budget tagging. This include integrating climate resilience planning.
However, despite these new provisions and improvements, series of concerns still remains on publication timeline, websites for councils and the implementation of audit recommendations.
Media practitioners and CSOs present at the engagement made several input into the discussion as part of effort to engage the Ministry of Finance on the process.
