IBP Releases the Findings of Open Budget Survey 2017

The Washington-based Open Budget Partnership (OBP) has recently released the findings of the Open Budget Survey for the 2017 round. The Survey is conducted biennially in over 100 countries across the globe.

The survey, carried out in Yemen by the Social Research and Development Center (SRDC), measures three different aspects relating to state budgets, public participation and strength of oversight institutions.

These aspects include how governments are managing the public finance including the transparency of the state’s budget, engagement of citizens and non-government organizations in decisions relating to how resources are collected, what priorities are set and how these resources are used.

The survey addresses as well the strength of legislator and auditing institutions tasked with scrutinizing the produced budgets and soundness of financial measures followed at the different phases throughout the budget cycle including preparation, approval, execution and oversight and evaluation. It also examines if there are any independent fiscal institutions to provide independent monitoring and oversight for all budget works.

The Open Budget Index, which is based on the findings of the Open Budget Survey (OBS), is considered the world’s only independent, comparable measure of budget transparency, participation, and oversight.

The overall score for Yemen on the Open Budget Index for 2017 is 0 out of 100. This is because no state budgets for the period covered by the survey were produced or published over the period covered by the survey (2015 – 2017).

Budget works in Yemen have been largely harmed by the coup which Houthi militia and forces loyal to the former President Ali Abdullah Saleh launched against the elected President and the government back on September 21, 2014, which turned into an ongoing civil war and later a military intervention by the Saudi-led Arab coalition at the request of President Hadi.

This war has brought about new realities on the ground and duplicate ministries and state instituitons. There have two governments: the legitimate government which is based in Aden and Riyadh and the coup government which runs Sana'a and some other provinces which are still under their control. Neither legitimate government nor Houthis produced any state budgets over the last three years.

It is only recently that the legitimate government produced a partial state budget which is confined to the first two chapters of the budget (salaries and some operational budgets for some state institutions) only and this budget itself is meant to cover exclusively the liberated provinces.

The partial budget for the fiscal year 2018 produced by the legitimate government was not published at all. It is just circulated among relevant state institutions. Additionally, the information of previous state budgets, final accounts and other relevant documents are no more accessible due to the fact that the websites run by the assets of Ministry of Finance and the World Bank-supported Public Finance Modernization Project (PFMP) are still under the Houthi control and both accounts have been suspended.

Yemen scored only 0 out of 100 in terms of public engagement and this relates to the fact the government does not provide any opportunities for Yemeni citizens to participate during the course of the budget cycle in terms of preparation, execution and oversight.

As to the strength of the auditing institution as well as the legislator, Yemen’s score was 9 out of 100 and this is because the oversight by both the Yemeni parliament and the Central Organization for Control and Auditing (COCA) are both very weak.

Yemen, compared to the previous rounds of the same survey, made an impressive progress between 2012 and 2014, under the National Reconciliation Government, but the progress achieved remained far below the then global average estimated to be 45 out of 100.

The Open Budget Survey is conducted regularly and 2017 round is the 5th round in which Yemen is incorporated. The scores of the previous rounds were 10 (2008), 25 (2010) and 11 (2012), 34 (2015) and 0 (2017).