By Juliana E P Kabba
The Budget Advocacy Network (BAN) on Friday, May 10th, 2024 conducted a training on Public Financial Management (PFM) to capacitate journalists in financial reporting.
Some 20 journalists from all forms of media – print and electronic – as well as bloggers, participated in the training held in Freetown.
Officials at BAN said the idea is to capacitate journalists’ knowledge on financial matters in order to position well to accurately inform the populace.
Abdullah Alhaji Alghali, head of Financial and Management Account in the Accountant General’s Department of the Ministry of Finance, was the main facilitator at the training. He spoke on the importance of providing a platform that allows journalists to build confidence in reporting financial matters accurately.
“It is also good to train journalists, not only accountants, because at the end of the day, they (journalists) take information to the public. We want them to carry the best information and get the right knowledge so that they won’t misinform the public,” he stated.
Mr Alghali added that journalism and accounting are almost identical twins in terms of operation and delivering work value, noting that they both arrive at aiding transparency and accountability.
The training focused on preparing financial statement, the standard used and the legal framework and provisions, among others.
Marion George, one of the participating journalists, said she had learnt many things during the training session, especially data journalism.
According to Ms George, Public Financial Management reporting entails figures, which she has always struggled with in her reporting.
Abubakarr Tarawally, Programms and Policy Officer at BAN, told ManoReporters after the training that journalists across the country have been reporting around public financial management issues and that they have identified gaps in these reportage, which necessitated the training.
He added that the goal is to empower journalists to hold duty bearers accountable in their management of the country’s economy.
“Transparency has to do with how government generates revenue and how those revenues are spent on behalf of the citizens. Generally, Sierra Leoneans need to know and understand,” Mr Tarawally said.
He went on to say that the training was basically designed to help journalists and citizens to know the annual expenditures of government and determine whether the government is utilizing resources for the rightful purpose.
