Keeping tabs on our money

ARCHIVES 2009

By admin-s On Apr 23, 2009

One area where openness is sorely needed is in government spending. Billions of ringgit are poured into the economy, and yet unexplained "leakages" still happen — it sometimes feels as though the Treasury department is in need of a good plumber.

By Shanon Shah (The Nut Graph)

It's no surprise that in 2008, the Open Budget Index (OBI), a global research body, ranked Malaysia a lowly 53rd out of 85 countries that it surveyed for budget openness. The lack of transparency, OBI noted, made it difficult for Malaysian citizens to hold the government accountable for its management of the public's money.

The Malaysian government provides citizens with the executive's budget proposal, the enacted budget, in-year reports, a year-end review, and an audit report. However, the OBI notes that these reports give citizens only a general, incomplete picture of the government's plans, making government spending difficult to track.

"Also, while Malaysia makes its audit report public, it does not provide any information on whether the audit report's recommendations are successfully implemented," says the OBI.

In an effort to be more transparent about how taxpayers' money is used, the Finance Ministry on 31 March 2009 announced a website to allow the public to monitor the RM60 billion stimulus package which was announced on 10 March.

First impressions

"At first glance, the website looks mighty impressive," Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) senior research analyst Noel Dass tells The Nut Graph in a phone interview. However, he says closer scrutiny of the website raises many questions.

"For example, it's great that the website has a status semasa (current status) section which gives information on allocations for all the ministries," says Dass. However, he says the website does not tell citizens specifically which projects the money has been disbursed to.

"There are also instances where one ministry will give money to another ministry; for example the Finance Ministry will have some allocations for projects by the Transport Ministry," he says. "But there is no information on the website on inter-ministerial accountability as far as the details of these projects are concerned."

DAP Member of Parliament for Port Klang Charles Santiago gives an almost identical response to The Nut Graph in a separate phone interview.

Santiago"The website is a good start as it's helpful for people to have a general background understanding of the stimulus package," he says. "But we need a specific breakdown of the companies and contractors that have received these allocations, and how exactly each of these projects is supposed to benefit the people."

Santiago stresses that the devil is in the details.