National Planning and Budgeting Act, No.1 of 2020.

This Act, comprising 53 articles, is designed to institute a unified national planning and budgeting system that prioritizes enhanced accountability, participatory decision-making, and decentralization. It aligns with the National Planning Framework and promotes evidence-based decision-making to bolster budget credibility. Key principles guiding this process include transparency, accountability, subsidiarity, fair resource allocation, responsiveness to developmental requirements, execution credibility, defined timelines, societal engagement, government input, comprehensive resource coverage, performance orientation, and sustainable development with intergenerational equity.
Article 4 establishes the National Development Coordinating Committee, tasked with advising the Cabinet on formulating, executing, monitoring, and assessing the National Development Plan and budget. This committee also oversees national, provincial, and local planning and budgeting processes, incorporating feedback from annual reviews and policy recommendations from advisory groups. Its mandate ensures participatory, transparent, results-oriented processes that address public needs. Additionally, two committees — the Provincial Development Coordinating Committee and the District Development Coordinating Committee — are established to facilitate local-level coordination and implementation.
The Act mandates the Secretary to the Treasury and relevant controlling officers to review the budget framework paper and estimates, ensuring alignment with medium-term policies. A pivotal aspect involves the preparation of a national budget policy statement by the Minister responsible for finance, delineating economic and fiscal policies for the forthcoming financial year. This budget operationalizes the National Development Plan, encompassing revenue and expenditure estimates drawn from various sources like taxes, grants, and borrowing. Moreover, the Act addresses supplementary estimates, constraints on excess expenditure warrants, and the budget's presentation to the National Assembly. It underscores the significance of annual and mid-term reviews of the National Development Plan to gauge progress, make necessary adjustments, and inform future planning endeavors. Additionally, the Act stipulates the publication of a Medium-Term Budget Plan as a white paper and mandates the production of a final evaluation report of the plan two years after its expiration.