Kuala Lumpur, 22 July 2022 – The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) launched the Malaysia Open Budget Index (MyOBI) today to promote state-level budget transparency in Malaysia. MyOBI is a new index to gauge the level of budget transparency of state governments in Malaysia. The assessment is modelled on the standards set in Open Budget Survey (OBS), an international fact-based assessment for measuring budget transparency. 

“MyOBI is an IDEAS initiative to create greater demand for accountability at the state level by measuring the level of budget transparency practised by state governments. Transparency is vital for state governments because  they provide essential facilities, public services, and stimulus for economic development at the local level. Citizens have the right to know how our state governments allocate and spend public resources. MyOBI provides insights on which state governments have done their best to practise transparency. IDEAS did not do the assessment alone; we worked with several civil society organisations and civic-minded individuals to carry out and review the assessment and we want to thank them for their hard work throughout the past eight months,” said Tricia Yeoh, CEO of IDEAS.

The MyOBI assesses public availability of budget documents and the quality of oversight mechanisms in the budget process. To gauge public availability, MyOBI assesses the publication of four types of key budget documents and the level of detail provided in the estimates of revenue and expenditures. Budget documents must be freely available online or made available upon request, in order to meet the benchmark. To gauge the quality of  oversight, MyOBI assesses the involvement of state assemblies (Dewan Undangan Negeri, DUN) including their Public Accounts Committee (PAC)  in assessing budget documents.  

The results show that only Terengganu published all four budget documents and provided a substantial level of detail in their estimates of expenditures and revenue. Five other states – Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Perak, Johor and Sabah – published three types of key budget documents, but they did not provide the same level of detail in their estimates of expenditure and revenue. The remaining seven states published only one or two types of budget documents. The poorest performing states in public availability had not made the executive budget proposal (EBP) fully available, which is the critical budget document comprising the budget speech, the estimates of expenditures and revenue, and the supply bill. The EBP comprises most of the weightage in the score on public availability.

The results also indicate that the level of oversight by state assemblies is low. The DUN in most of the states deliberated the budget only one month before the start of the budget year.  The oversight by Public Accounts Committees (PAC) in the states is largely unreported, with Selangor being the only state with published reports of meetings conducted by the PAC online. Additionally, state assemblies have very few meeting days, and only seven states publish the Hansards (Official Record or Penyata Rasmi). The lowest performing states did not have the Hansard, reports of the Public Accounts Committee, nor sufficient time to deliberate the budget ahead of the budget year. 

“We hope the publication of MyOBI will encourage state governments to publish budget documents online and encourage the public to check and read these documents. For democratic accountability to work, we need both governments and the public to play their roles in ensuring public resources are allocated and spent effectively and efficiently. For the states that have encouraging results, we hope these practices will continue and improve in the future. MyOBI only tracks public availability of four budget documents and details of a small number of information in the document. According to international best practice, there are four other types of budget documents that the state governments can publish to inform the public on their budget activities,” Sri Murniati Yusuf, IDEAS Deputy Research Director said. 

“Another reform that we hope to see as a result of this publication is the improvement of oversight capacity of our DUNs. The number of sitting days need to be increased to facilitate more effective oversight. The PAC should have more regular sessions and publish their reports on DUN websites. In fact, publishing this document and other relevant documents such as hansard and reports on DUN websites are the low-hanging fruit of reforms that the government can carry out because all DUNs already have websites.”

“As this is the first assessment, we welcome constructive input and feedback on how to improve it. We hope to carry out this assessment more regularly in the future and contribute to strengthening democratic accountability in Malaysia,” said Sri Murniati. 

IDEAS also launched another new transparency initiative called Pantau Projek  (Project Monitor) today. Pantau Projek assesses data accessibility and information transparency of state-directed public infrastructure projects in Malaysia. For the pilot assessment, 14 projects in 7 states were assessed. Through Pantau Projek, IDEAS hopes to increase public awareness on monitoring the use of public resources, while providing state governments with a benchmark for information disclosure on infrastructure projects. The results from Pantau Projek show that  state governments may use  media to engage the public on major projects, but key information for accountability is not usually disclosed, such as information on the actual implementation cost against budgeted cost, and the procurement process for implemented projects.

MyOBI and Pantau Projek are IDEAS civic advocacy initiatives. We worked alongside civil society organisations and civic-minded individuals to conduct the research and assessments. IDEAS would like to thank these research partners for their time and support in these initiatives. The MyOBI and Pantau Projek scorecards for all states can be found on the newly-launched Pantau Wang Kita website.

— END —

Download Media Statement PDF File  Here

For enquiries, please contact:
Alissa Rode, Manager, Public Finance Unit
T: +603 2070 8881/8882 | E: Alissa@ideas.org.my

Louis Denis, External Relations Manager
T: +603 2070 8881/8882 | E: louis@ideas.org.my