Rep. Silvia A. Petitti presented to the Provincial Legislature, a bill that seeks to implement a process "Participatory Budgeting in the municipalities of our province .
Participatory Budgeting is a tool of direct democracy that allows citizens to influence or take decisions on public budgets.
basically consists of a series of activities through which the demands show community and result in economic terms, ie on concrete investments aimed at addressing the needs that the community as a whole considers to be priorities, funded with state funds, ie all the money that we contribute through taxes.
The main contribution of Participatory Budgeting is the settlement of the idea of \u200b\u200bactive citizenship , by involving a neighbor and resident of the province.
The idea is to understand, ultimately, governance as something that has to do with our lives and as citizens, we can not only participate through elections, but we are also able to decide on matters as important as the destination of the funds in our town.
On the other hand, can see other advantages of this mechanism as a major transparency and efficiency in public administration, to decide between all of what is going to spend our taxes.
also improve communication between representatives and citizens , resulting in a higher quality of representation, and also helps reduce clientelist practices undertaken by different governments.
Moreover, it is a self-regulating process, meaning that all participants in the process decide what should be the "game rules" while encouraging active reflection and solidarity , since all the residents have the opportunity to meet the challenges and demands of others, establishing a dialogue beneficial for social integration. While
PB about money, it also creates new opportunities for participation, the deepening of democracy, to participate to decide. In short, ownership is essentially about governance by the citizenry, which basically constitutes the essence of democracy.
In this sense, the participatory budget seeks to break with the traditional conception of the budget that puts it as exclusively technician can only be addressed by professionals, to start seeing it as essentially political in that every one of us are involved.
The main reason that drove the development of this project has been the growing crisis currently going through traditional institutions, a fact reflected in the low participation and low levels of credibility that have those institutions.
Today we see major processes of social transformation, new power structures, communication, social stratification, economic and political realities supranational civic new cultures, new social actors and new political and socio-political issues.
However, democratic institutions remain a rigidity that prevents them from adapting to the new company, which makes meeting the new demands. That is why there is an increase of discredit and a demand for the quality of democracy and the deepening of all the mechanisms and levels of participation.
This state of social apathy and demobilization favors the most powerful, imposing on the State policy guidance according to their interests and not those of society.
Therefore, I think the system of representation is insufficient to address the current crisis, and it seems appropriate to extend representative democracy to participatory democracy .
Basically the idea is that the local government set for consideration of the inhabitants of the municipality a certain percentage of its annual budget, that they propose and define the investments to be made through these funds. That percentage would grow year after year, as the Government and people gain experience in the implementation process.
In particular, the mechanism I propose is organized as follows:
First, through popular assemblies, the neighbors would develop and define priorities for the various items attention as deemed necessary.
then through a Council composed of neighbors and representatives of government, be organized and would rise the proposals set out in previous instances to the Executive Department, to incorporate them into the General Budget.
Moreover, that body would be responsible for assessing and monitoring the implementation of the budget and render an opinion on fiscal slippages, if any, thus allowing the control of society on the use of funds from the State, all of us.
Therefore, the participatory budget process is proposed as a means would achieve two objectives closely related. On the one hand, propose new forms of governance to ensure their efficiency through citizen engagement. On the other, deepening the democratic foundations through greater participation in matters closely related to everyday life.
Thus, before the economic crisis, political and institutional today we cross, we are working within the Independent Radical block to improve the quality of life of the population, and through public participation, improve governance.
look forward to your support, and with any questions or suggestions please write to bloqueradicalindependiente@gmail.com , or visit our blog: bloqueradicalindependiente.blogspot.com.
0 comments:
Post a Comment