Bareedo Platform appreciates Puntland Ministry of Finance for publication of its state revenue and expenditure to the citizens first time. This is first kind of openness to be shown by a budget holder in Somalia and is a time Puntland citizens need greater transparency and accountability from their government. Every year, Puntland collects and spend millions of taxpayer funds to pay for services such as education and healthcare. Citizens have a right to know how their government is collecting and where they are spending their money.

Transparent, accessible and credible open data is a key tool for safeguarding transparency and accountability of the government to the citizens and empowers civil society, journalists and citizens to hold power-holders accountable and to expose and address corruption.

Openness across the budget and fiscal cycle through transparency, public participation, and legislative oversight , allows citizens to hold their government accountable and reduce waste. Over time, this can ensure that government spending reflects the people’s interests and needs. The central point of democracy includes that people need to be able to watch the actions of the delegated persons, to ensure that they are fulfilling the popular mandate and not pursuing their own interests.

Bareedo Platform has been leading a campaign aimed to encourage open government by offering commentary and analysis of all available government data and information which are hard to the public to understand easily, to promote democracy and accountable government and challenge corruption and the culture of secrecy. Bareedo Platform will continue the campaign of opening up vital data and information to the public.

See the publications made by the Ministry of Finance from the ministry’s website: www.mofpuntland.com and its social media links.