Moldova ranks 33 in open budget index

Chisinau, 31 January /MOLDPRES/- Moldova was ranked 33th out of 115 countries included in the world budget transparency “Open Budget Index”, with 58 points out of 100, released today. “We are 16 points above the global average, a few points of countries that are considered consistent with transparency. I am sure that in the next ranking we will take a better position,” Finance Minister Octavian Armasu said today.

It is the first time Moldova is officially included in the Open Budget Index, being assessed according to the indicators for 2016. This index measures budgetary transparency and public access to budgetary information. The result is determined by the points. The Expert-Grup centre carried out the estimates of budgetary transparency in Moldova.

According to the ranking, Moldova is placed immediately after countries with more developed economies like the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and ahead of Spain, Ukraine and Hungary.

“Let us not forget that the assessments were made according to the 2016 indicators, which followed a crisis, therefore we entered the financial year without approved budget. In 2017, we made significant efforts to improve the situation, to approve legislation in term,” he said. He added that one of the goals of the institution is to raise the quality of the information that is available to the citizen so that he is better informed about the budget process.

Programme director at the Expert-Grup centre Dumitru Budeanschi appreciated the place Moldova ranked as “pretty good”. “We are quite optimistic about what will happen in the coming years”, the expert said. “In terms of medium term expenditure framework and annual budget execution report, Moldova has good grades, a score of over 80 points, which would place us in the top of the countries”. At the same time, the citizen’s participation in the budget process should be greatly improved, the expert said.

The results of Moldova are not a surprise, as part of it served as a prerequisite for the EU macro-financial assistance, deputy head of the EU Delegation projects section Marco Gemmer said. At the same time, the European expert drew attention to improving budgetary information and supervision, as well as improving public participation in the budget process.

In the past, the Exper Grup assessed this index on the basis of mechanisms similar to OBI and found that it has not progressed over the last years, largely due to political factors. Moldova recorded a transparency score of 59 out of 100 in 2015, unchanged from the 2012 level, indicating that the government provides limited budget information to the public.

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor A. Răileanu)