The Public Administration reform Coordinator’s Office, in cooperation with the Enterprise Development Agency Eda from Banja Luka, drafted the “Budget for Citizens” – a document that presents the budget of this institution for 2017 in a simple and illustrative manner.
“An access to information on budget activities of one institution enables the citizens to understand political and economic decisions and monitoring of public spending, as well as an increase in transparency of the work of the institution. Our budgets are published in the Official Gazette, on our web sites, and they are often, as such, difficult to understand for the wider public. Following the examples of good practice, we wanted to show to the citizens that even the most complicated issues, such as the budget could be presented in a simple manner”, said Dragan Ćuzulan, public administration reform coordinator.
Ćuzulan also added that “availability of information is extremely important for suppression of corruption and achievement of a greater efficiency of public services”.
The Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office will continue this practice of publication of the Budget for Citizens, and draft of the next document is expected to take place in early 2018.
Considering that the Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office is the first institution at the state level that has the “Budget for Citizens”, Ćuzulan expresses his hope that this example would be followed also by other institutions.
The guide is available here.
Draft of the methodology and the budget for citizens was financed by the Open Shttp://parco.gov.ba/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BzaG-PARCO_elektronska-smanjeno-3.pdfociety Fund of BiH.
Importance and significance of availability of budget information to a wider public were recognised by the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Budget Partnership. The International Budget Partnership promotes and supports introduction of the practice of preparation of the BfC through the aforementioned guide for draft of the BfC and within their research – Open Budget Survey.