An Investigation in to the Effectiveness of Participatory Budgeting in Achieving Community Development Goals in Port Loko District Council)

The Sierra Leone local council is charged with the responsibilities to govern and look over the welfare of its citizens in its localities but has been faced with a lot of challenges ranging from limited finance, insufficient staff capacity, insufficient material resources, mobility, and little compliance from bigger MDAs in terms of control. Hence has raised effectiveness issues in council operations. With the implementation of participatory budgeting in Port, Loko District Council calls for a study with the objective to investigate the effectiveness and linearity of participatory budgeting in the achievement of community development goals in the Port Loko District Council. Purposive sampling was done and administered a survey questionnaire to 420 respondents in the Port Loko District. Simple linear regression and correlational tests were used to interpret and analyze the primary data using SPSS 16.0 software package. The data analyses found out that there was a mean agreement rate of 1.95, which indicated that the respondents agreed that participatory budgeting was effective. The hypothesis test, if the effectiveness of participatory budgeting in Port Loko District Council has an impact on the achievement of community development goals, the major finding in this research is that effectiveness of participatory budgeting significantly affects the achievement of community development goals in the council district and concludes that participatory budgeting implemented in the Port Loko District Council in relation to the achievement of community development goals is effective, has a positive relationship and a strong correlation between them.