•Kenya ranked 48th out of 125 countries globally, with a transparency score of 55, a 5 point improvement from 50 in 2021.
•Uganda led the East African region in budget transparency with 59 points,followed closely by Kenya with 55 points and thereafter Rwanda with 50 points.
Kenya ranked among countries that have made significant strides in accountability to its citizens by consistently availing key government documents to the general public.
According to the latest data from the Open Budget Survey 2023,Kenya ranked 48th out of 125 countries globally, with a transparency score of 55, a 5 point improvement from 50 in 2021.
The survey uses internationally accepted criteria to assess public access to central government budget information giving the public a chance to audit government institutions and expenditure.
The survey analysis focuses on public participation, budget transparency and budget oversight.
Notably, Uganda led the East African region in budget transparency with 59 points, followed closely by Kenya with 55 points and thereafter Rwanda with 50 points.
The rest of the East African countries scored below the global average,45 points, with Comoros leading from behind with 4 points.
Tanzania scored 40 points, Madagascar had 39 Somalia 37 Burundi 14 and South Sudan was the second lowest with 13 points.
Kenya, however, ranked first in public participation in East Africa with 31 points, followed by Rwanda with 16 points and third was Uganda with 15 points.
The survey urged the Kenyan Treasury to allow the public to testify during audit report hearings and pilot mechanisms to monitor budget implementations.
In addition Kenya scored 57 points in budget oversight with legislative oversight with 47 points and audit oversight leading with 78 points.
Speaking during the launch of the survey findings in Nairobi, Institute of Public Finance Kenya(IPF) CEO James Muraguri highlighted the need for the public to know the spending and allocation of government funds.
“Transparency and participation in the budget process are consistently associated with improvements in the quality of the budget, such as a lower deficit, more targeted budget priorities, and increased operational efficiency,” he said.
“Participatory budgets have been shown to have the potential to build tax morale and increase revenue. This is because budget transparency creates a virtuous cycle in public debt management, leading to lower borrowing costs as well as low debt levels,” he added
The report comes at a time when there are ongoing budget public hearing sessions spearheaded by the National Assembly Finance and National Planning Committee to give views on the proposed 2024/2025 budget estimates.
The government has come under scrutiny in recent times with discussions on how it spends its allocated budgets given the widening budget deficits.
Notably, the Budget and Appropriations Committee approved the expenditure of Sh3.914 trillion.
The estimated revenues from taxes are expected to be Sh3.354 trillion, made up of ordinary revenues of Sh2.913 trillion and appropriations-in-aid of Sh441 billion.
Further, the projected fiscal deficit will be Sh703.9 billion which is the difference between total revenues and grants and total expenditure and net lending.
This fiscal deficit represents 3.9 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).