JCTR’s Reflections on the 2020 National Budget

The JCTR’s Kasama Office has over the years been engaged in advocacy and lobbying of policy makers in order to promote social justice for all people epically the poor. On 4th July, 2019, stakeholders drawn from Health, Education and Water & Sanitation in Kasama met to identify challenges in their sectors and made their recommendations to reflect in the 2020 National budget. The National budget has since been compiled and presented in Parliament by the Minister of Finance Hon. Dr. Ng’andu Bwalya, but the question is ‘were the proposals made by the people of Kasama included in the national budget? The budget shows that few proposals submitted by stakeholders in Kasama have been considered in the 2020 national budget. This is not only saddening but worrying for the people. To encourage ownership and sustainability of projects, government needs to embrace the bottom-up kind of approach, and sometimes prioritize projects identified by communities and see how they can incorporate those projects in national budgeting and planning.