Uganda ranks high in budget transparency

Finance minister Matia Kasaija displays a briefcase containing the National Budget at Kampala Serena Hotel in June. FILE PHOTO

What you need to know:

Credit. The country is credited with having substancial information about the budget.

Kampala. The Global Open Budget Survey Index 2015 has ranked Uganda among the top 24 leading countries in budget transparency out of 102 surveyed.
In the survey released last week, Uganda scored 62 points in ascending order among the countries with substantial information on the budget after the first category of those with extensive information.
Regionally, Uganda tops its peers, Kenya second with 48 points, Tanzania 46, Rwanda 36. Burundi did not appear in the Open Budget Survey Index.

“Still, hydrocarbon countries, such as Mexico, and low-income countries, such as Malawi and Uganda, are among those that provide sufficient budget information. Such exceptions demonstrate that any government can, if it so chooses to make its budget appropriately transparent,” the survey states.
The survey authors explain that governments in all survey countries are also invited to review and comment on the results, and many do so. The bulk of the questions examine the amount of budget information that is made available to the public through eight key budget documents.
“Based on the answers to 109 questions, each country is given a score between 0 and 100 on the Open Budget Index (OBI) – a broad, comparable measure of budget transparency,” the authors said.

The survey authors, who included Anjali Garg, Isaac Shapiro, and Joel Friedman, stated: “Previous results have been widely used by individual country governments and civil society organisations, as well as by multi-stakeholder and sector-specific transparency and accountability initiatives, to improve the disclosure of budget information.”

Alpha Capital Partners managing director Stephen Kaboyo told Daily Monitor that it does not come as a surprise for Uganda to come on top of its regional peers with respect to budget processes as evaluated by the survey.
“When you take a look at what is available in the public domain, one cannot fail to notice the level of detail, timeliness of information and the relevancy of the budget information that is made available. In my view, transparency has greatly improved in the last year or so,” he said.

About the open budget survey

The Open Budget Survey is the world’s only independent comparable measure of budget transparency, participation, and oversight.
While other public finance assessments mostly rely on government self-reporting, the Open Budget Survey is implemented by independent researchers based in each of the countries surveyed who conduct analysis to determine the answers to 140 factual questions, and the results are reviewed by an anonymous expert.

The survey assessment is based on budget related documents and it tests three aspects of budget transparency: disclosure, oversight and participation. That is: (1) the level of disclosure in budget documents; (2) the oversight of the budget by the legislature and Auditor General; and (3) the public participation in the budgetary process.