Bangladesh’s score has marginally fallen in terms of transparency and accountability with its national budget, according to a new survey.
However, despite slipping the score to 56 this year from 58 out of 100 in 2010, the country’s performance in Open Budget Index (OBI) is substantially higher than any other South Asian countries.
The biennial report released by a Washington-based advocacy group, International Budget Partnership, has identified that the government is weak in providing the public with opportunities to engage in budget process.
The open budget survey was carried out in four pillars—transparency (open budget index), public participation, oversight by legislature and oversight by supreme audit institution.
While comparing the score achieved by the SAARC countries, Bangladesh has performed high with a score of 56, India (46), Pakistan (43), Afghanistan (42) and Sri Lanka (39). Nepal has received minimal score as compared to the global average score of 46.
In case of transparency, Bangladesh’s score is 56, indicating that the country is almost as likely to publish budget documents as those with scores above 60.
The weakest performing countries (those with scores of 40 or below) actually have higher incomes, on average, than the countries with scores between 41 and 60.
Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, China, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Iraq, Myanmar, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam have been among the least transparent countries (with OBI scores of 20 or less).
On public participation, Bangladesh scores 23, suggesting that meaningful channels for the public to engage in the formal budget process are rare. Participation opportunities are typically insufficient at all stages of the budget process. Further, even when governments have established mechanisms for the public to participate, they often fall short of good practice.
About oversight by legislature, Bangladesh scores 49, meaning that the country has not adequate latitude to execute their responsibilities. However, the report has said that the country’s budget oversight by the supreme audit institution is adequate, as it scored 75.
New Zealand ranked at the top in the open budget index with a score of 88. Sweden with a score of 87, Norway with 84, the United States with 81 and United Kingdom with 75 rounded up the top five among the 100 countries surveyed for budget transparency.
Only 24 countries have acceptable levels of budget transparency and the index, which is based on 109 questions, measures the amount, level of detail, and timeliness of budget information that is publicly available in 102 countries.
The remaining 78 countries (which account for 68% of the world’s population) provided “insufficient” information, 17 of these provided scant or no budget information.
