Publication of Budget Documents (LR0028)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address?: The 2015 Open Budget Survey assessed legislative oversight of the budget process in Liberia as weak, the audit process as weak, and public participation in budgeting as weak.; What is the commitment?: The commitment seeks to open up the budget process for citizen participation. An open budget process is essential if citizens are to understand how public resources are being used and managed.; How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?: The commitment will make public budget information related to the executive budget, the budget speech, and audit reports. This will allow citizens to more fully participate in the budget process. Coupled with oversight by the legislature and audit institutions this will contribute to a more accountable use of public money.; Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?: This commitment is critical in achieving three pillars of budget accountability: budget transparency, public participation, and formal oversight, which are central to the OGP values of transparency and citizen participation.

2. Publication of Budget Documents

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

"The commitment seeks to open up the budget process for citizen participation. An open budget process is essential if citizens are to understand how public resources are being used and managed.

The commitment will make public budget information related to the executive budget, the budget speech, and audit reports. This will allow citizens to more fully participate in the budget process. Coupled with oversight by the legislature and audit institutions this will contribute to a more accountable use of public money."

Milestones:

1. Publication of annual audit reports;
2. Publication of the pre-budget statement and the year-end report on budget implementation;
3. Extend coverage of International Financial Management and Information System to an additional 8 ministries & agencies and provide functional/technical support to ensure use and effectiveness;
4. MOFEP will publish, within 3 months of the end of the quarter, data on quarterly central government expenditures, by Ministry, Department and Agency

Editorial Note: For the complete text of this commitment, please see Liberia's action plan at: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/liberia-action-plan-2017-2019/

This commitment aimed to open up the budget process through timely online publication of budget statements, audits, and reports. It also proposed to add eight ministries, agencies, and commissions to the International Financial Management and Information System (IFMIS). The IFMIS is a computerized system that aims to improve institutional accounting capabilities and efficiency through automated transactions and reporting. ^[9] As a result of such disclosure, the government anticipated an increase in community engagement and monitoring in the budget process, as well as in the allotment and expenditure of resources. The government also anticipated that this disclosure would also lead to greater transparency of those receiving funds and trigger audits where needed. Overall, this commitment aspired to leverage transparency to reduce allegations of corruption, ^[10] and systemic public underfunding of basic services. ^[11]

At the time of this commitment's formulation, the budget calendar, drafted and approved budgets, quarterly reports on budget execution and revenue collection, and the annual citizen's guide to the budget were available on the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning's (MoFDP) website. However, problems accessing the 2018 version of the MoFDP website inhibited public access to budget documents. ^[12]

This commitment had limited completion at the end of the implementation period. Annual audit reports are available on the General Auditing Commission's website (Milestone 1). ^[13] The IRM researcher confirmed that the prebudget statement was distributed and discussed in the legislature. ^[14] However, prebudget statements were not published online in either 2017 or 2019. ^[15] The end-of-fiscal-year report was not published online in 2017 but is available for 2019. ^[16] Therefore, Milestone 2 was partially completed. OGP Working Group minutes state that the ministry published quarterly financial statements for 2017/2018; however, they are not available online (Milestone 4). ^[17]

According to the MoFDP, the government completed Milestone 3, which aimed to extend the IFMIS to eight ministries and agencies. Now, the Ministries of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry, Education, Health, Internal Affairs, Justice, Labor, Mines and Energy, Public Works, Youth and Sports and the Liberia Land Authority use IFMIS. IFMIS is also used within the judiciary and the National Security Agency. MoFDP provided technical support to ministries for effective use and management. ^[18]

This commitment led to marginal changes in government practice. The amount of budget documents publicly available online—and therefore citizens' access to budget information—only slightly improved. Between 2017 and 2019, Liberia's Open Budget Index score saw only a slight increase, from 36 to 38 points out of 100, for budget transparency. ^[19] The government publishes many budget documents for internal use or makes them available only in hard-copy format. While the national budget, citizen's guide, and budget call circular are available online, ^[20] budget documents specified in this commitment were not provided on the MoFDP website by the end of the implementation period. Online publication of more budget documents would have increased the commitment's level of completion.