Kuala Lumpur, ​30​ January 2018 – Malaysia provides limited budget information to the public and few opportunities for public participation in the budget process and this should be rectified.

This finding is based on the results of the Open Budget Survey 2017 (OBS), conducted by the International Budget Partnership (IBP). IDEAS is the Malaysia partner in this global survey.

The survey results, which is released today, also concluded that Malaysia’s legislative and audit institutions provide weak oversight on the budget process. Malaysia obtained scores of 46, 22, and 35 out of 100 for transparency, public participation and oversight respectively.

Launched in 2006, the OBS is the world’s only independent, comparative assessment of the three pillars of public budget accountability: transparency, oversight and public participation. The 2017 survey evaluated 115 countries across six continents.

The recent survey finds that the level of Malaysia’s budget transparency remains largely unchanged since 2015. This means that the amount of budget information available to the public has not been improved.

As for the weak budget oversight, the survey highlights the absence of parliamentary select committees as one of the reasons. ​Among 10 Commonwealth countries in Asia Pacific that are included in the survey, Malaysia is among the lowest in terms of budget oversight score, with only Fiji and Papua New Guinea below us.

However, the survey shows that the government has improved public participation during budget formulation process resulted in Malaysia having above average global score in this category.

Commenting on the result, Sri Murniati, IDEAS Fellow who is also lead researcher for the survey, said that “the improvement in public participation should be celebrated. The government has done well in this respect. We need to improve public participation by improving transparency and oversight so that we perform better in a holistic way. The recommendations from this survey should be considered seriously.”

She added that “one of the recommendations that the government can take up immediately is to establish parliamentary select committees. The discussion on this matter has been taking place. In fact, there has been reports that the government has agreed on establishing nine select committees, but the details are scarce and no target date is given. The government should aim to have the PSCs ​immediately after GE14.”

“Having PSCs will certainly improve the level of accountability, especially regarding the use of public spending. PSCs can thoroughly scrutinise the budget during its formulation and implementation phases as well as related government policies and laws. Having PSCs will also improve the level of transparency and public participation because they can involve the public in the process either by inviting experts or stakeholders during the discussion, or even by allowing the public to observe the discussion​​.”