Bangladeshi law has weakest role xin budgetary process in S Asia

The Bangladeshi legislature has the weakest role in the budgetary process among all South Asian countries, and its score in the Open Budget Index remained unchanged in 2010, though budgetary transparency has gradually increased over the last three years.
That is according to the Open Budget Index 2010 report released by Unnayan Shamannay, a civil society think-tank, at a press conference held at its conference room Monday.
The Open Budget Index, an initiative of the Washington-based International Budget Project, is produced by 94 civil society organisations and research institutions across 94 countries.
The main reasons behind the low legislative score are that the legislature does not have sufficient power to amend the executive’s budget proposals, legislators cannot bring any amendments to the budget over the course of the fiscal year, sufficient time is not given for budget deliberation, and that the legislature doesn’t allow the public to give testimony at public hearings on budget discussions, according to the findings.
The OBI scores for Bangladesh were 39, 42 and 48 in the year of 2006, 2008 and 2009, respectively. Bangladesh’s performance indicates that the government provides only some information to the public in its budget documents.
Bangladesh’s 2010 score of 48 is above the median score of 42 for the 94 countries that were surveyed. First place is occupied by South Africa, with 92.
Bangladesh would greatly strengthen public accountability by producing and publishing pre-budget statements, citizens’ budgets, mid-year reviews and year-end reports, and empowering the supreme audit institutions to publish summaries of audit reports.
All this can significantly boost public participation as well as the executive’s accountability in the budget process, says the report.
The government recently enacted a law titled ‘Public Money and Budget Management Act 2009’. As per clause 15(4) of the law, the finance minister shall place a quarterly report before the parliament explaining the budget status effective from FY 2009-2010.
Two quarterly reports have already been published before the parliament. This will increase Bangladesh’s score in the next Open Budget Survey, it is said.
In terms of adequacy and availability of eight key budget documents, Bangladesh now publishes only three documents — executive’s budget proposal, enacted budget and in-year reports.
The report observed that Bangladesh does not prepare pre-budget statement (though the finance ministry officials sit with businesspeople, economists and civil society to gain their inputs), citizens’ budgets, mid-year reviews and year-end reports.
M Abu Eusuf, associate professor, Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka, who conducted the study in Bangladesh addressed the press conference as a keynote speaker.
AHM Mustafa Kamal MP, chairman, parliamentary standing committee on ministry of finance was present as chief guest. Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled, Emeritus Fellow, Unnayan Shamannay and chairman, Bangladesh Krishi Bank, presided over the event.
The index rates countries on a scale of zero to 100, depending on whether their respective governments have provided ‘extensive information, significant information, some information, minimal information or scant/no information’ to their citizens on their national budget.
The International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey assesses the availability in each country of eight key budget documents, as well as the comprehensiveness of the data contained in these documents.
-New Age