BUDGET TRANSPARENCY IN MALAYSIAN STATES: - KEY FINDINGS OF MALAYSIA’S OPEN BUDGET INDEX

The questionnaire is based on the subnational budget transparency evaluation devised by the International Budget Partnership (IBP), the publisher of the Open Budget Survey (OBS), a global survey that evaluates the level of transparency, oversight, and public participation in the budget process. [...] Year-End Report (YER) is the document that reports the actual budget execution and the situation of the government’s accounts at the end of the fiscal year. [...] Like many of the states scoring in the mid-range, Penang had not published the EB and the YER, while its EBP was only in the form of the Budget Speech which did not provide any kind of breakdown on the expenditure and revenue for the year 2022. [...] Given the usual minimum amendments to the budget, it is very likely that the state government did not see the need to publish the Enacted Budget because the content will likely be the same as the EBP. [...] Seven states did not provide a sufficient time length of 1 to 3 months before the start of the next budget cycle for the tabulation of the EBP; the short time span would hinder the legislature to review the EBP, and nine states failed to approve the EBP at least one month before the fiscal year.