Chapter four: Economic governance and management behind. They have underscored the challenge of inadequate capacity as a serious constraint on policy making and implementation. 118 421. The budget-preparation process does not allow for timely and sufficient stakeholder participation. Ministries draft legislation and prepare budget bids without consulting with the public. Stakeholders at district level are only consulted after the budget speech and there is no mechanism to ensure that their views are considered. The budget has a limited policy framework and its analyses of challenges and opportunities need to be deepened. The policy dimension is important, because the budget should be viewed as a tool to deliver services and to build capacity for accelerated and sustained broad-based growth for poverty alleviation and social development. This calls for the growth strategy to be finalised and the MTEF to be rolled out. 422. As the CSAR indicates, there is heavy reliance on aid and special instruments like AGOA. This underpins important weaknesses in Lesotho’s policy framework. AGOA stimulated strong growth in manufacturing output and exports. They were difficult to maintain once the Act was repealed and because of the stiff competition in the textile market from China and other emerging economies. Although AGOA has now been reinstated until 2015, there is a need for the government to define clear strategies for mitigating the impact of its repeal after 2015. 423. As the CSAR notes, sound public finance management should establish clear links between planning and budgeting processes and national goals and priorities. It should also improve revenue collection, deepen expenditure control, and facilitate the inclusion of all stakeholders in the planning and budgeting process. Lesotho is yet to establish strong links between the expenditure and revenue sides of the public budget. 424. In the MTEF framework, ministries are expected to move away from ‘incremental budgeting’ and to make their requests for budget funding on the basis of planned ministerial outputs that will be linked to achieving the goals adopted in the overall development strategy. The process depends on ministries developing their sectoral development plans to implement government policy. Some ministries – such as Education and Training, Communications, Science and Technology, Agriculture and Food Security, and Health and Social Welfare – have completed full or partial sector plans. One continuing weakness is the lack of robust parliamentary scrutiny of the strategic plans, caused by the lack of specialist parliamentary committees. This means that the proposed parliamentary ‘portfolio cluster’ review committees, with specialist advisers, need to be formed. 425. Another issue that can adversely affect progress in implementing the MTEF is that preparation of the aggregate resource envelope and determining aggregate and organisational expenditure ceilings rely on the outdated CBL economic model and the unreliable statistical base of BOS, as well as poor quality and timeliness of public accounts from the Government of Lesotho Financial Information System (GOLFIS). Obviously, it is necessary to improve the capacity of BOS to collect and analyse data. 426. While many line ministries are represented at district level (there are 12, for example, in Leribe), coordination between them is weak and ad hoc, not strategic or forward-looking. There are no clear long-term strategies, especially at district level. This explains partly the low project implementation and budget utilisation rate and calls for accelerated and adequate decentralisation of revenue assignments and expenditure responsibilities.