Budget transparency in Kenya has improved 5 places as a result of the government’s institutional and policy actions, a new report has revealed.
The Institute of Public Finance (IPF) Open Budget Survey (OBS) 2023 shows the country’s budget transparency jumped to 55 from 50 in 2021.
A transparency score of 61 or above indicates a country is likely publishing enough material to support informed public debate on the budget.
Kenya ranked 48 of 125 countries when it comes to transparency while its peers in the East Africa region such as Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania had scores of 59, 50 and 41 respectively.
In OBS 2023, Kenya increased the availability of budget information by publishing the audit report online as opposed to 2021 and 2019.
“Transparency and participation in the budget process are consistently associated with improvements in the quality of the budget, such as a lower deficit, more targeted budget priorities, and increased operational efficiency.,” said IPF Chief Executive Officer (CEO) James Muraguri.
“These values can also lead to better governance and redirection of spending to marginalized communities,” he added.
“Participatory budgets have been shown to have the potential to build tax morale and increase revenue. This is because budget transparency creates a virtuous cycle in public debt management, leading to lower borrowing costs as well as low debt levels.”
Over the year, Kenya had a transparency score of 50 in 2019, 49 in 2012, 48 in 2015 and the lowest score of 46 in 2017.
The survey recommends that the country should prioritize producing and publishing the mid-year review online promptly and be made available to the public online no later than three months after the midpoint of the fiscal year.
“Include in the Executive’s Budget Proposal data on the financial position of the government and data on the macroeconomic forecast. This would include information on financial and non-financial assets held by the government and estimates of the impact of different assumptions for the inflation rate, real GDP growth, and interest rates on expenditures, revenue, and debt,” read OBS 2023 in part.
In terms of public participation during the different stages of the budget process, Kenya scored 31 while Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania scored 16, 15 and 13 respectively.