By Amira Tekle

UMSU vice-president finance and operations Mbuli Matshe is spearheading an ongoing initiative to incorporate participatory budgeting into the students’ union’s finances, holding three days of tabling in UMSU University Centre to ask students “What would you do with $20,000?”

The first participatory budgeting exercise was held in the 2018-19 academic year. This year’s tabling was held from Nov. 5 to 7, 2019.

“Participatory budgeting is a democratic mechanism where the population in a community gets to decide how money is spent, or a portion of money or fees they contribute to that society is spent,” Matshe said.

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