ISS Seminar, Cape Town: South Africa's Open Budget: An Uncertain Future

Date: 2010-11-04

Venue: Institute for Security Studies , , 2nd Floor, The Armoury , , Buchanan Square , , 160 Sir Lowry Road , , Woodstock , , Cape Town

RSVP: Ms Hopolang Selebalo

[email protected]

Tel: (021) 461 7211

Fax: (021) 461 7213

Presented by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), International Budget Partnership (IBP) and Idasa.

The IBP`s Open Budget Index (OBI) is the world’s most comprehensive and independent assessment of how governments provide the public with budget information.  Since 2006, South Africa has consistently ranked in the top 5 out of 94 participating countries in the OBI.

The seminar will discuss the potential impact of the Protection of Information bill – also known as the Secrecy Bill – on budget transparency and participation in South Africa. Under the bill, every government department and municipality will have the ability to classify public information, including information pertaining to service delivery, in the name of national interest or national security. 

The adoption of the Protection of Information Bill, in its current form, will not only affect access to budget information, it will also curtail access to commercial information held by the government, making it difficult to hold both the private sector and government accountable for the management of public resources.  To illustrate the potential impact of the draft Bill, the discussion will focus on the governance principles of parastatals, drawing on research about the governance of the current Eskom loans. 

Chair:

Hennie van Vuuren, Institute for Security Studies, Cape Town

Speakers:

Hon. Themba Godi, Chairperson, Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Parliament.

Alison Tilley, Open Democracy Advice Centre, Cape Town

Thembinkosi Dlamini, Idasa, Pretoria

Dr Neil Overy, Research Specialist, Grahamstown

Please note that discussions occur under ISS Rules. Participants are free to use the information presented, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed without his/her express permission.