Chairman Sir,
Budget Book serves as a public document on the proposed government revenue and expenditure for each financial year. It provides accountability to MPs and members of the public in the usage of government funds.
However, the information provided in the Budget Book seems to be getting lesser with each financial year.
For example, there were 728 pages in the budget book for financial year 1994/95 and only 593 pages for financial year 2000/2001. For this year, the Budget Book has 417 pages.
I am not suggesting that the more pages in the Budget Book, the better it is, but I find the current Budget Book not useful enough for one to understand the individual program function and major changes in expenditure, if any, on major item of a ministry.
For instance, in the old Budget Book, under Ministry of Health, I can see specific subvention given to each restructured hospital. Under hospital services program, I can see some detailed expenditure such as rental, utilities, official celebrations & mass media expense, etc under Other Operating Expenditure (Pg 408/1994).
In the current year Budget Book, under Services Programme of MOH (Pg 315/6), I see one consolidated amount listed as subventions and the breakdown under OOE is rather brief. Some of the expenditures listed are simply classified as running cost without details provided.
I understand MOF has been innovative over the years to allow each ministry the flexibility to spend public money efficiently. One of the initiatives is to allow each ministry to have budgetary discretion by block budgeting.
While this flexibility may be good for the ministry, more transparency on expenditure is needed to ensure accountability. There should be a balance between flexibility and accountability for the financial resource entrusted to the ministry. I would like to know how MOF ensure accountability and transparency of government expenditure to the public.
(Note: this speech was delivered in Parliament on 9 Mar 2010.)
