Are the government officials good stewards of public funds? Essay

The parliament should play an restless component part in ensuring the availability and credibility of pecuniary culture. There should be clear procedure for work out execution, monitoring, and spread overing. The directing system should proffer a reliable basis for tracking tax incomes, commitments, payments, arrears, liabilities, and assets, writes M S SiddiquiA calculate is a regimes plan on the single-valued function of world resources to meet the citizens needs. Budget Transparency (BT) means that ordinary citizens can gate knowledge about how overt resources are allocated and used. Budget Transparency is defined as the full disclosure of all relevant fiscal selective entropy in a agely and systematic manner. BT is a precondition for habitual participation in cipher processes. The combination of BT and in the public eye(predicate) participation in reckon processes has the potential to combat corruption, foster public answerableness of regimen agencies and contribute to judicious use of public funds (OECD, 2002).BT enables citizens to assess whether the brass activity officials are good stewards of public funds. BT is a fundamental precondition for accountability and public participation in governance processes. Representatives of civil society and brotherly organizations in our country have long been demanding ofthe giving medication to initiate compute formulation from the district take aim to make the national budget a democratic and pro-poor one. The brass has also promised to decentralize the authority to district level but has yet to initiate the process.The Washington-based Open Budget Initiative is a global watchdog of budgets of different countries of the world. The Open Budget Index (obeah), alert with the help of local partners, provides ratings of the openness of budget materials of different countries. The Department of ripening Studies of the University of Dhaka was the local partner for OBI for the Bangla desh budget for the fiscal stratum 2010-11. The Index assesses the availability of key budget documents, the quantity of information they provide, and the seasonableness of their dissemination to citizens in order to provide reliable information on each countrys commitment to budget transparence and accountability.The just OBI tick off of the countries surveyed in 2010 is 42. According to published reports, only 20 of the 94 countries included in the 2010 Open Budget Survey had OBI scores above 60 and can be characterized as providing their citizens with abounding budget data to enable them to develop a comprehensive epitome and understanding of their national budgets.About one-third of the countries (33) provide some information and scored in the midst of 41 and 60. In a plurality of countries (41), the amount of information provided was acutely inadequate. Of these, 19 countries provided minimal information and scored between 21 and 40), and 22 countries provided little to no budget information and scored 20 or less. The 22 countries are Algeria, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Honduras, Iraq, Kyrgyz Republic, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome e Principe, Senegal, Saudi-Arabian Arabia, Sudan, and Vietnam.Only 17 of the countries surveyed provided comprehensive budget information on policies intend to alleviate poverty. 41 countries provided no information on extra-budgetary funds in their budget proposals even though extra-budgetary funds account for nearly 40 per cent of central judicatures expenditures in transitional and ontogenesis countries. In 52 countries, the legislature had no power to prevent the executive from moving funds between administrative units.Legislatures in only 26 countries provided the public with formal opportunities to provide testimony during budget discussions. In 35 countries, all discussions about the budget between the legis lature and theexecutive , including hearings, were entirely closed(a) to the public, including the media, and no public record of such meetings was subsequently provided.Bangladesh scored 39, 42 and 48 in 2006, 2008 and 2009 respectively. Bangladeshs performance indicates that the political sympathies provided only some information to the public in its budget documents. 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 audit institutions to publish summaries of audit reports.The organization enacted a police force titled Public Money and Budget perplexity Act 2009. As per clause 15(4) of the law, the finance minister shall place a quarterly report before parliament explaining the budget status statutory from FY 2009-2010. Two quarterly reports have already been published. These reforms have apparently increase transparency of the budget and this will hopefully improve Bangladeshs score in the next Open Budget Survey. In terms of sufficiency and availability of eight key budget documents, Bangladesh now publishes only deuce-ace documents -executives budget proposal, enacted budget and in-year reports.A non-transparent budget can incomplete be veraciously analyzed nor can its implementation be efficaciously monitored. Transparency allows citizens to provide inputs into the budget process and to assess whether a government executed the development plans in accordance with budgetary allocations.There is no practice of disclosure of information about implementation of the budget and the politics can transfer fund from one account to another account and legalize such actions through approval of supplementary budget at the end of the year.The parliament and civil society must have the fortune to influence the budget and assess whether the government executed what it planned.The manoeuvre over government finances is co mplicated in part by the animadversion of the local governments from fiscal management system. The central government has full control over the administration in all tiers causing weak administrative capacity at the local levels. more(prenominal)over, the structure of intergovernmental fiscal relations in Bangladesh has served to discourage local governments from raising their own revenues. The situation has aggravated receivable to recent amendment of laws giving much authority to the law makers over inspection and policy matters of upazilas. The authority of local governments are shared by law makers, bureaucrats and local public representatives making the process almost ineffective. Under these circumstances, the opportunities for duplication of responsibilities and unclear assignment of authority and revenue income and expenditures make the development role unvoiced and multifactorial. decentralisation of government has become a popular scheme based on the premise that lour levels of government can kick downstairs respond to local demands and needs at lower cost. A proper decentralization whitethorn introduce new legislation regarding tax share and intergovernmental transfers to address complex authorities and inequalities in development programmes. The effectiveness of this schema critically depends on the ability of citizens to hold local government officials accountable. The more decentralized the revenue and spending decisions, the more important it becomes to ensure that lower levels of government also follow good practices on fiscal transparency under direct supervision of local governments.The Constitution of Bangladesh defines the roles of the executive, legislative, and judicial disseveres of the government all the way. Articles 81-92 of the Constitution lay down the basic principles of fiscal management and Articles 127-132 the role of the Comptroller and Auditor-General (C&AG). The Additional Functions Act of 1974 (as amended in 1 975 and 1983) allocates the accounting live to the C&AG. The accounting function has now been transferred to the Finance Division of the Ministry of Finance. However, in practice, the relationship between the different branches ofthe government, particularly between the executive and legislature, is wide seen as confrontational.Non-fiscal public corporations provide non-commercial services, usually by being indispensable to charge less than cost recovery prices (e.g., pricing electricity beneath cost to domestic consumers). These non- monetary public corporations have also been required to provide social services. These non-commercial activities may be financed by cross-subsidization between different groups of consumers and/or by incurring losses that are financed from the budget or by borrowing. There are three categories of the prices of electricity, gas and water based on domestic, commercial and industrial consumer segments.In some instances, certain non-financial public cor porations may charge excessive prices and transfer the supernormal profits to other corporations or to the budget. This practice confuses the fiscal responsibilities of government and the commercial role of non-financial public corporations, makes relationships between government and non-financial public corporations nontransparent, and creates difficulties in holding managers of non-financial public corporations accountable for their performance.The government remains heavily involved in commercial and financial sectors of the economy and provide support to the enterprise sector through a complex nexus of direct subsidies and quasi-fiscal activities of non-financial public enterprises and the nationalized commercial banks. Lack of clarity in reporting either direct or indirect support to enterprises makes it difficult to assess either the industry policy or the sustainability of fiscal policy. In addition to lack of transparency in reporting, the lack of clarity of managerial role s between commercial activity and provision of subsidized services or goods to the public is a major factor contributing to widely adjudge failures of management, corruption, and poor industrial relations in these sectors.The fiscal powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government should be comfortably defined. The powers and limits of each branch with respect to changes in the budget during the fiscal year should be clearly specified in the legal framework. The draft budget submitted by the executive to the legislature as well as the final budget approved by the legislature should be made public to enable the people to hold each branch accountable for its part in the budget process.The parliament should play an brisk agent role in ensuring the availability and credibility of fiscal information. This would include having an active committee of the legislature to oversee the conduct of fiscal policy and to allay civil society input into budget delibe rations.The relationship between the government and public corporations should be based on clear arrangements. Fiscal transparency requires that the financial relationships between the government and public corporations be clearly stated. In particular, because public corporations are owned in whole or in part by the government, there should be clear expectations of how profit transfers or dividend payments to the government will be determined.The annual reports of the public corporations should provide expound on total profit, retained earnings, any other uses of profit, and the amount transferred to the budget, and this information should also be included in the annual budget documentation. For purposes of fiscal transparency, all payments by public corporations, including taxes, royalties, dividends, or profits, should be reported in the annual report of the corporations as well as in budget documentation. Any payments in kind should be valued at their grocery value in the budg et. Conversely, if the government makes transfers to the public corporation, they should be included in the annual budget.Again, both the budget and the annual reports of the corporations should identify transfers from the government to the corporation. For instance, financial or commercial institutions may be asked to undertake lending at subsidized rates, the subsidy component representing a loss to the institution. However, if the government without delay subsidizes the activity, it should appear as subsidy in the governments budget and the policy cost should be transparent.The fiscal powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government should be well defined. The responsibilities of different levels of government and the relationship between them should be clearly specified. The relationship between the government and public corporations should be based on clear arrangements. Governments relationship with the private sector should be conducted in an ope n manner, following clear rules and procedures. There should be a clear and open legal, regulatory and administrative framework for fiscal management.The collection, commitment, and use of public funds should be governed by comprehensive budget, tax, and other public finance laws, regulations, and administrative procedures. Laws and regulations related to the collection of tax and non-tax revenues, and the criteria guiding administrative discretion in their application, should be accessible, clear, and understandable.There should be clear procedures for budget execution, monitoring, and reporting. The accounting system should provide a reliable basis for tracking revenues, commitments, payments, arrears, liabilities, and assets. A timely midyear report on budget developments should be presented to the legislature. More frequent updates, which should be at least quarterly, should be published. Supplementary revenue and expenditure proposals during the fiscal year should be presented to the legislature in a manner consistent with the original budget presentation.Audited final accounts and audit reports, including rapprochement with the approved budget, should be presented to the legislature and published within a year. The public should be provided with comprehensive information on past, current, and projected fiscal activities and on major fiscal risks. The government should publish a periodic report on long-term public finances. Fiscal information should be presented in a way that facilitates policy analysis and promotes accountability. A clear and bare(a) summary guide to the budget should be widely distributed at the time of the annual budget.During budget formulation, the executive should issue two documents with at least a one-month gap between them the pre-budget statement, which presents the assumptions used in developing the budget, such as the expected revenue, expenditure, and debt levels, and the broad allocations among sectors and the executives bu dget proposal, which presents the governments detailed declaration of the policies and priorities it intends to pursue in the upcoming financial year, including the specific allocations to be made to each ministry and agency.All Ministries should hold pre-budget consultive meetings with their stakeholders. These meetings should be presided over by the concerned Ministers. These meetings should be held before they stimulate consultation on budget with the Ministry of Finance. All standing committees on different ministries should hold on a regular basis pre-budget consultation with stakeholders. Decentralization process should be strengthened for empowerment of local governments.The writer, a half-time teacher at The Leading University, is pursuing PhD in Open University, Malaysia. He can be reached at e-mail shahbanglachemical.com