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Budget Timeline Affects Country’s Transparency Ratings – IPPR


By:Staff writer
Institute for Public Policy Research’s (IPPR) Executive Director Graham Hopwood has raised concerns over the national budget timetable for Namibia.
According to Hopwood, this year’s National Budget Speech, Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure, the Fiscal Strategy, and the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) documents were available on the Ministry of Finance website on the day the budget was tabled.
“The Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure is a large and complex document, made more complicated by the restructuring of expenditure by Classifications of the Functions of Government (COFOG) in line with the IMF’s Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014 some years ago.”
According to him, the 2020 cabinet reshuffle added to the confusion and makes a comparison of the current year with previous years difficult.
“Past Estimates documents contained information on the subsidies and transfers to public enterprises.Details on subsidies and Current Transfer to State-owned enterprises of the main Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure document and contains detailed information about recipients of Government transfers to all State-owned enterprises, not just commercial ones.”
He further said that there is no aggregate information on the size of the public service or the number of posts filled on the establishment.
In 2022, Namibia dropped in the global rankings on budget transparency and accountability published by the International Budget Partnership.
Namibia’s transparency score also decreased from 51 in 2019 to 42 last year.
According to Hopwood, a score of 61 is considered the minimum threshold to foster an informed public debate on budgets.
“The global average transparency score in the last OBS was 45. Namibia published 6 of the 8 required public documents within the timeframe set by the survey. The dip in Namibia’s transparency score comes mainly because government did not publish its Accountability Report on time in 2020 while the Auditor General’s report on government finances was published so late it could not be considered,” he said.
“Namibia could make strides in budget transparency by improving the timing of audit reporting and making sure the Accountability Report is published within 12 months of the year under consideration,” he added.
Hopwood said the drop in score for Namibia comes against a backdrop of progress in other parts of the world.
“Most countries were able to maintain, and in some cases build on earlier gains in accountable spending practices despite the pandemic. Namibia’s score on the budget oversight element of the Survey increased from 46 in 2019 to 48 in 2021,” he said.
“Namibia continued to perform poorly on the public participation part of the survey registering a zero score as there were no formal opportunities for meaningful public participation afforded by the government, parliament, or the Auditor-General’s office,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Finance and Public Enterprises Ministry’s Economic Advisor Helvi Fillipus says the Ministry has held consultations with local and regional councils and the general public, however faced the challenge of poor attendance from local businesses.
“For a national budget, you want to get as much input from different sectors,” Fillipus said.

Staff Writer

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