Accra, February 1, 2018//-Ghana scored 50 out of 100 in the 2017 Open Budget Index (OBI), which indicates a fall in scores as compared to 51 out of 100 in that of 2015.
OBS is an initiative of the international Budget Partnership, that tacks and assesses Central government’s performance in transparent, public participation and budget oversight of the legislature and mandated audit institutions.
This doesn’t mean government has performed poorly in making budget information available to citizens, but it is to be noted that, there hasn’t been much progress made available enough to uplift the country to reach its targeted score of 67 by 2012.
Presenting the official launch of the the 2017 OBS results in Accra, Sandra Kwabea Sarkwah, the Project Officer of SEND GHANA, indicated that, being the sixth assessment of Ghana’s performance on budget transparency, Ghana’s score had not seen the required improvements over the years.
“The country has failed to meet its target of 67 as envisaged in the 2012 survey, and countries like Senegal, Georgia, Jordan and Mexico have experienced significant gains in OBI since their participation in the survey,” Sandra stated.
She however noted that, the score indicates that government provided the public with very limited information on budget, thus, Ghana scoring 22 out of 100 in public participation.
“Where limited means that not all the eight budget documents, namely Pre-Budget Statement, Executive’s Budget Proposal, Enacted Budget, Citizens Budget, In-Year Reports, Mid-year Review, Year-End Report and Audit Report were published online and on time,” she said.
On the eight budget documents, Pre-Budget Statement score was 0 out of 100, whereas the Executive Budget Proposal had 55, the Enacted Budget also scored 56 and the Citizens Budget chalked 50 out of 100, the In-Year Reports was 0, Mid-year Review scored 70, Year-End Report, 67 and Audit Report scoring 62 out of 100, which were all published late.
She however, called a published Pre-Budget Statement online as well as the publication in a timely manner In-Year Reports online and as well increase the information provided in the Executive’s Budget Proposal by providing more detailed information on expenditures borrowing and debt.
“For instance, net borrowing, external and domestic debt were provided while that of the maturity of debt was not provided, therefore giving Ghana a score of 33 instead of 100,” Sandra added.
On her part, Mrs. Harriet Nuamah Agyemang, the Senior Programme Officer, of SEND GHANA called on the three arms of government to step up and or initiate mechanisms to engage the public, extensively on budget issues and as well urged all independent fiscal institution to help strengthen budget oversight.
According to her, there was a decline in the global report which was announced in Washington, United States of America on January 30.
The programme was organized by SEND-GHANA with support from International Budget Partnership (IBP).
By Sammy Adjei
