In the International Budget Partnership’s (IBP) new 2019 Open Budget Survey, Timor-Leste’s budget transparency score remained at 40 out of 100, unchanged since 2015, but La’o Hamutuk researcher Eliziaria ‘Febe’ Gomes, noted that the country has stalled while

most other Southeast Asian countries have improved.

“Our score is stuck below acceptable levels, worse than 58% of the countries surveyed,” Gomes said in a statement released Friday.

“Although Timor-Leste sees itself as more democratic than the rest of Southeast Asia, it’s clear that decisions need to be more visible and participatory, so that our people know how their money is used and can ensure that it addresses their pressing needs,” she said.

The survey, covering 117 countries, rates the level of budget transparency across countries on a scale of 0-100, based on several normative, internationally comparable indicator.

Gomes said La’o Hamutuk was concerned about the exclusion of the public from budget preparations at most parliament budget hearings.

“Ministries need to hear from the people as they are preparing their budgets, and spending and revenue information should be made available as it happens,” she said.

“Although our Government is proud of its Transparency Portal, the public finances portal has no information about 2020, while the intermittently-functional procurement portal has no information on many important contracts, including the largest ones in the last few years.”

Careful spending is critical in Timor-Leste, given its financial dependency on the depleting Petroleum Fund, she said.

“As our oil and gas deposits are depleted and the money in our Petroleum Fund declines, Timor-Leste will have to use our shrinking savings more wisely, while diversifying our economy and state finances away from dependency on illusory oil and gas.”

Gomes also said she was also troubled by the lack of budget transparency progress, especially

“at this critical time”, when Timor-Leste has not enacted a 2020 State Budget but rapid emergency spending is required to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It is especially important that information on state spending be available to the public,” she said.

According to the new report, four of the eight key budget documents that governments should publish were not available to the public, which is worse than the average for all countries, for whom one third are not public.

The Open Budget Survey is part of the International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Initiative, a global non-profit research and advocacy program designed to promote public access to budget information and the adoption of accountable budget systems.