IDEAS: MALAYSIA NEEDS REFORMS TO ENSURE PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN BUDGETING PROCESS

KUALA LUMPUR, May 31 (Bernama) -- Malaysia needs institutional reforms to ensure sustainable public participation, oversight and transparency practices in the budgeting process, said Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS).

In a statement today, IDEAS deputy research director Sri Murniati Yusuf said the institute urges the government to speed up measures to make Parliament more professional and accountable in order to achieve major improvements in oversight.

“Our Parliament needs functioning, fully resourced parliamentary select committees, whereby extensive debate on spending, policies and administration can happen more regularly.

“The Parliament also needs to have a platform for more active public participation in oversight practices, such as public hearings for certain parliamentary select committees sessions,” she said.

Sri Murniati was commenting on the 2021 Open Budget Survey (OBS) findings which showed that Malaysia maintained its limited level of transparency with the same score of 47 out of 100 as in the year 2019.

“The increase in both the oversight and public participation scores was encouraging but these improvements may not be sustainable.

“They are occasional in nature and are not anchored on established practice yet,” said Sri Murniati.

She explained that the Economic Stimulus Implementation and Coordination Unit Between National Agencies (Laksana) reports, for example, are outstanding instances of public participation, but they are confined to stimulus packages and frequent updates on the implementation of the annual Budget are now unavailable to the public.

Malaysia is at 57th place out of 120 countries assessed in the 2021 OBS and Malaysia’s public participation score increased from 17 to 26, placing itself at the second-highest ranking after the Philippines in Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, the oversight score has increased from 31 in 2019 to 39 in 2021.

The oversight score measures the extent to which Parliament and the National Audit Department can provide independent checks to keep the government accountable for financial management.

-- BERNAMA