More sanctions needed to promote budget transparency

Vietnam has made positive changes in increasing budget transparency. Photo: Internet

Key points to promote budget transparency

The results of the Open Budget Survey (OBS) 2023 recorded positive changes in Vietnam in enhancing budget transparency.

Vietnam's OBS 2023 rankings in all three pillars of transparency, public participation and budget oversight increased compared to OBS 2021 and were higher than the global average.

Mr. Vu Ngoc Tuan, Chief Auditor of the State Audit Department III, said that during the audit process, the State Audit would also audit the implementation of responsibilities and obligations regarding budget disclosure of budget management and use units. However, when pointing out non-compliance, what conclusions and recommendations will be is also a problem in the process of organizing the implementation of audit conclusions and recommendations. Regarding the issue of no sanctions for units and localities that do not disclose their budgets, this issue needs to be further studied when amending the State Budget Law in the near future.

According to Mr. Nguyen Minh Tan, Deputy Director of the State Budget Department, Ministry of Finance, there are 3 factors that help improve budget transparency.

In which, the key point is that the legal framework has been gradually completed by promulgating the State Budget Law in 2015, being effective from 2017.

On that basis, the Government issued Decree No. 163/2016/ND-CP detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the State Budget Law.

The Ministry of Finance has also issued Circulars guiding budget transparency for all levels of government as well as for budget-using units and organizations supported by the State budget.

Accordingly, the 2015 State Budget Law clearly and comprehensively stipulates the content, scope, process, forms and time for implementing budget transparency, from the Government's estimates submitted to the National Assembly, the People's Committee's estimates submitted to the People's Council, reports on the implementation of budget revenue and expenditure in the quarter, 6 months, 9 months to issues related to budget settlement reports and reports on the implementation of conclusions and recommendations of the State Audit (SA).

In addition to the legal framework, contributing to improving Vietnam's budget transparency index is the awareness of implementation.

The Ministry of Finance has strictly complied with the regulations on budget transparency. When reporting on behalf of the Government to the National Assembly on the annual budget, the Ministry of Finance has published it publicly.

After the National Assembly votes on the annual budget, the Ministry continues to publish it within the prescribed time limit. During the operation, every quarter, 6 months, 9 months, the Ministry of Finance has a public budget report to post on mass media.

At the same time, urge localities to better comply with regulations on public budget. In addition, the Ministry of Finance has been and will continue to research and absorb good experiences to manage the budget, helping to promote public budget transparency.

Sanctions needed for non-public budget disclosure

In addition to the positive results, according to the survey results of the Center for Development and Integration (CDI), public participation in this process in Vietnam is still low, reaching only 19/100, although still higher than the world average (15/100).

Explaining this, a representative of the Ministry of Finance said that the 2024 survey by the Ministry of Finance in 9 localities on the situation of public budget disclosure showed that although the regulations on public budget disclosure were complete, it seemed that the information issued was not really suitable and close to the needs of the people, especially the people at the village level.

Therefore, in the coming time, management agencies will have to study to adjust to suit each locality, subject, and level.

In addition, the financial and budgetary sector is a narrow field, only professionals can read and understand it, most of these public documents seem to only be available to those doing research. Furthermore, there are delays, lateness and incompleteness in publicizing information according to regulations or only publicizing data without explanation.

According to Mr. Nguyen Minh Tan, the legal framework on publicizing and transparent budgets is relatively complete, the determination of all levels is there, but there are still units that have not implemented publicizing and transparent budgets due to lack of sanctions. Therefore, in the near future, when comprehensively amending the State Budget Law, the Ministry of Finance will study to be able to include sanctions on this issue in the Law.

Emphasizing the improvement in budget disclosure through the results of the State Audit's supervision, Mr. Vu Ngoc Tuan, Chief Auditor of the State Audit Department III, said that, based on the Resolution of the National Assembly, in the past 2 years, the State Audit has publicly disclosed the list of units as well as organizations and individuals that have not implemented audit conclusions and recommendations.

Thanks to that, the rate of implementing audit recommendations has improved a lot. If previously, the rate of implementing audit recommendations was about 70%, in the recent period, this rate was 75-80%; especially in 2023, the rate of implementing recommendations was up to 87%.

According to Mr. Vu Ngoc Tuan, the subjects accessing and using audit reports need to be grouped and classified.

For example, for audited units, the State Audit Office must provide full information on audit results so that the unit can grasp and correct, amend, and overcome its limitations and shortcomings, or must send them in full to the state management agency.

Or when publicizing an issue, such as publicizing the management and use of public vehicles, in addition to providing an assessment of how the unit uses more than the vehicle quota, it is necessary to explain and make transparent related information so that the person accessing it can clearly understand the issue.