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Thursday, 02 June 2022 22:21

El Salvador with low score in budget transparency

Written by Evelyn Alas

According to the International Budget Partnership (IBP) survey, El Salvador falls in the world rankings of budget accountability and obtained a drop of five points, going from 46 in 2019 to 41 in 2021 on a scale from 0 to 100.

In Central America it is the country with the worst score, very close to Nicaragua, which has a score of (42), far below Honduras (61) and Guatemala (64). On the scale, 0 is insufficient and 100 is sufficient transparency.

El Salvador has never published a mid-year review and in 2021 belatedly published the preliminary document and did not publish the audit report on the budget.

This means that salvadorans have less access to timely or complete information they need to participate in decision making and that the Central Government is accountable.

Ricardo Castaneda, an economics expert at the Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Fiscales (ICEFI), said that transparency will be fundamental for "what is coming" in El Salvador, that is, "a complicated financial situation".

The report indicates that budget participation also obtains a low score in El Salvador: 20 on the same scale. Legislative oversight of the budget has a score of 56 and audit oversight of 72.

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