The Budget Transparency Index of Moldova made no progress during the last few years mainly because of political factors. The Independent Analytical Center “Expert-Grup” determined that Moldova in 2015 had a score of 59 out of 100, remaining at the same level as in 2012. This shows that the government offers the public limited budget information, IPN reports.

Analysis author Tatiana Savva said this score places the country the 27th out of 100. At regional level, Romania moved up to the Top 10 countries, in contrast to the 49th rank in 2012.

Since 2012, the Republic of Moldova has improved transparency in the publication of the adopted budget and of the annual state budget implementation report, but made no progress in drafting the budget for the people and the mid-year review. As regards the people’s participation level, the country scored 20 points out of 100 possible, which means that the government does not manage to engage the people in the process of working out the budget.

The political instability of the last few years is a major cause for the stagnation of the budget transparency index. This powerfully destabilized the budgetary process. Furthermore, the non-publication of two of the most important budget documents (budget for the people and mid-year review), limited comprehensibility of the budget documents and poor surveillance by the relevant institutions were also factors that substantially affected the score.

To improve the score, “Expert-Grup” recommends the authorities to increase the volume of information presented in the budget documents by publishing the budget for the people. Furthermore, the author recommends raising the level of people’s participation, increasing the supervision power of the legislature and respecting the budget calendar.