KATHMANDU, June 12: Nepal fell 12 places on the budget transparency index in 2021, with the country delaying in making main documents public and publishing the country’s annual report late.

The global report on the open budget survey unveiled by the International Budget Partners (IBP) shows that Nepal fell from the 65th to the 77th position last year. The international watchdog, through its survey covering 120 countries, has come up with the result, based on the people’s access to information with regard to receiving public resources and spending patterns of the federal government of the countries concerned.

The IBP did not conduct the survey during 2020 due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Nepal also appeared pathetic in people’s participation in formulation of annual budget. In the heading, the country received only 24 points out of the threshold of 100 points, shows the IBP report.

Weak monitoring by the federal parliament during both the planning and implementation phases of the budget has been identified as Nepal’s main hurdle in maintaining budget transparency. Nepal has been mainly asked to consider presenting the budget at least two months before the commencement of the budget while the various parliamentary committees have been asked to keep an eye on the trend of spending of the budget and making them public through various online platforms.

 
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