Transparent budgets
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The fact that disclosure of government budgets has become a key public concern marks a step forward in the political democratization of the country. Yet, governments at various levels have done little to inform the public on how their money is being spent.
Only 18 government departments of the 109 that responded to a survey of administrative transparency conducted by the public policy research center under the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, have made public their budgets, but just a part of that, even when the law requires that it should be published in full.
Their degree of administrative transparency is only 3.21 points against the required 100 points as per the State Council's regulations on government information disclosure, the survey published Tuesday has shown.
In an interview, Gao Qiang, director of the budget working committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said that the conditions were mature for the disclosure of government expenditure.
However, there is still a long way to go before governments at all levels reveal information pertaining to money spent on conferences, cars for official use and trips by officials.
Dozens of central government departments made their budgets public during this year's NPC and CPPCC (Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) sessions. But many deputies complained that they could not understand the published documents.
Making budget books hard to understand or selectively publishing only unimportant items seem to be safe tactics used to fulfill minimal requirements. The public may need to push harder to get them to tell the whole truth.
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