Budget Breakfast

East Africa is just coming to the end of its annual budget frenzy. A number of years ago, someone cooked up the idea that all member states of the East African Community should present their annual budgets on the same day. This year, of course, the stakes are high: East Africa as a whole has been experiencing rapid inflation (driven by price rises in basic needs - in particular food and energy prices), currency depreciation, and the resulting political instability elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East.

According to the East African, the Finance Ministers didn't do a great job this year: I quote: "they sacrificed free market policies in the political horse-trading that has largely restored the numerous import exemption schemes blamed for slowing intra-regional trade.... [leading] to a slow return of entrenched nationalism that will slowly undermine the remaining stages of the region's integration process - the Monetary Union and Political Federation." A fairly disappointing analysis in the context of the real economic risks that present themselves.

Many moons ago, when I worked in Coopers & Lybrand Kenya's management consultancy practice, I co-ordinated the production of pre- and post-budget newspaper articles by partners and senior managers as part of Coopers' marketing programme in the region. Since then, the stakes have risen. The big 4 accounting firms and local accounting institutes splash out on budget breakfasts, lunches and cocktails - if you are able to get on two or three invitation lists, you can spend a full day criss-crossing the city in search of the next freebie in the opulence of Kampala's leading hotels.

The truth is that the budgets are usually a damp squib, full of self-congratulations and airy promises based on dubious assumptions and murky public sector accounts. Quite why public sector governance is so weak, when calls for ever-stronger private sector governance from public sector regilators continue to be so loud, seems strange. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Juvenal's 2,000 year-old question remains as relevant as ever.