Planning Minister MA Mannan on Monday underscored the need for increasing the involvement of stakeholders in the budget formulation process.
"No government information is classified. All the information should be made public. We are trying to do that," he said.
The minister said this while speaking as the chief guest at a webinar, organized by the Washington-based International Budget Partnership and Bangladesh's Research and Policy Integration for Development (Rapid) for unveiling the findings of the Open Budget Survey- 2021.
Mannan mentioned that the information of the projects of the annual development program (ADP) is already being opened.
According to the survey report, Bangladesh's budget transparency score has decreased due to disruption in information disclosure due to Covid-19.
The survey measures a country's budget transparency score in three categories: public participation, legislative or parliamentary oversight and audit authority oversight.
The survey of the Bangladesh part was conducted by Prof M Abu Eusuf of Dhaka University.
He said: "Even though the size of the budget in the country has increased, the involvement of the people is still far behind. Besides, we are lagging behind in publishing the budget information."
At the webinar, Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Finance Mustafa Murshed said: "All government information is now provided through IBAS++ (Integrated Budget and Accounting System). But it takes time to get information from there."
"Moreover, the government further verifies various documents to provide accurate information, which caused a fall in the budget transparency score," he added.
The survey says that bringing transparency alone is not enough to ensure good governance. This requires public involvement on a broad basis. If the people are more involved in the budget formulation process, the transparency in the budget will automatically increase a lot.