Increasing the Financial Transparency of the Assembly of RM (MK0140)

Increasing the financial transparency of the Assembly of RM
Start and end date of the commitment: January 2019 - December 2021
Lead implementing agency
Assembly of RM
Description of commitment
Status quo or problem addressed by the commitment
Need to increase the financial transparency and the budgetary autonomy of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia. Nonpublication of the public procurement plan of the Assembly. Insufficiently detailed Assembly budget. Unavailable reports on the execution of the Assembly budget.
Main objective
Open and transparent parliament
Brief description of the commitment
Budget transparent legislative authority through budgetary autonomy of the Assembly, publication of the Assembly budget and reports for its execution in an easy searchable and accessible format. Details of the six-digit budget and publication of the public procurement plan of the Assembly.
OGP challenge addressed by the commitment
- Increasing public integrity - More efficient public resources management
Additional information
Reference to objective 16 "Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions" Target 16.6: Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels. This commitment will contribute to improving the public accountability of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia by increasing its financial transparency
Milestones
1.2.1 Publication of the adopted budget of the institution and the balance sheet on the website
1.2.2 Adopted amendments to the Law on budgets
Name of responsible person from implementing agency
Cvetanka Ivanova
Title, Department
Secretary General of the Assembly
Phone and e-mail
02/3112-255, sekretar@sobranie.mk
Other actors involved
Government of RM Ministry of Finance

Open Parliament I: Accountability

1.2. Increasing the financial transparency of the Assembly of RM

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan: [102]

“Budget transparent legislative authority through budgetary autonomy of the Assembly, publication of the Assembly budget and reports for its execution in an easy searchable and accessible format. Details of the six-digit budget and publication of the public procurement plan of the Assembly.”

Milestones:

1.2.1 Publication of the adopted budget of the institution and the balance sheet on the website

1.2.2 Adopted amendments to the Law on budgets

Start Date: January 2019

End Date: December 2021

Context and Objectives

Under this commitment, the Assembly of North Macedonia plans to publish its adopted budget, balance sheets, and procurement plan to its website, and to amend the Law on Budgets. Prior to the action plan, the Assembly did not publish these budget documents, even though there was a legal requirement for some to be published. [103] The aim of the proposed amendments to the Law on Budget is to move from line budgeting to performance budgeting. [104] According to a representative from the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the amendments to the Law on Budgets also aim to improve the Assembly’s financial independence and introduce a requirement for semi-annual financial reports to be published. [105]

The milestones are relevant to the OGP value of access to information because they promise to facilitate and provide access to budget information. The commitment’s activities are verifiable, though they lack detail on the scope of the proposed amendments.

Overall, if fully implemented as written, this commitment could significantly improve budget transparency. Prior to the start of the action plan, the Assembly did not publish many important budget documents or procurement plans. According to NDI, the current Law on Budget does not require procurement plans to be published to the Assembly’s website, only to the Public Procurement Council’s website. [106] Additionally, the amendments to the Law of Budget could provide the legal basis for greater transparency in the budget’s actual performance compared to the situation before the action plan.

Next steps

The IRM recommends that the Assembly publish its budget information in open data and reusable format (as opposed to scanned documents).

[102] The texts for all the commitments are an abridged version of the commitment texts. For the full commitment texts, see the Republic of North Macedonia 2018-2020 National Action Plan, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Macedonia_Action-Plan_2018-2020_EN.pdf

[103] Damir Neziri, Westminster Foundation for Democracy, email correspondence with IRM, 18 January 2020.

[104] Damir Neziri, Westminster Foundation for Democracy, email correspondence with IRM, 18 January 2020.

[105] Aleksandra Cvetkovska, National Democratic Institute, email correspondence with IRM, 21 January 2020.

[106] Aleksandra Cvetkovska, National Democratic Institute, email correspondence with IRM, 21 January 2020.

Commitment 1.2 Increasing the financial transparency of the Assembly

Substantial:

The Budget of the Assembly, as well as the Annual Procurement Plan, the End of Year Account, and the public procurements are available on the Assembly’s webpage, separated in timeframes [136] which was not previously the case. [137] The publication of the amendments to the budget and the monthly realization of the budget is an improvement compared to the status quo before the action plan. However, they are published in PDF format, which is not user friendly. [138] Documentation for previous years has also been retroactively published on the Assembly’s webpage.

The amendments of the Law on Budgets have not been introduced. [139]