By Niveen Wahish A SIMPLIFIED form of the government's annual budget will now be made available to the general public. Dubbed Citizen Budget, the new publication is intended to familiarise citizens, including those who are not familiar with public finance, with the government's fiscal policy. "Citizens have to know the constraints the government is facing in its spending, whether in terms of revenues or expenditures," Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros Ghali told a press conference this week explaining the rationale behind the new document. Niveen Wahish attended the conference. The Citizen Budget is part of a plan to create a more transparent system, said Ghali. And transparency is important for citizens to hold government accountable for its spending. The issuing of this new publication is also intended to improve Egypt's position on the Open Budget Index (OBI). The OBI gives countries a transparency score on a 100-point scale. Published in October, the index gave Egypt a score of 49, as such placing the country half-way up the table. The results were published as part of the Open Budget Survey (OBS) produced every two years by non- governmental experts. According to the index, this position means that Egypt "provides only some information on the central government's budget and financial activities assessed by the survey." Egypt has previously scored 19 in 2006. Jordan, with a score of 50, was found to be the most transparent budget system in the Middle East and North Africa. Among the requirements of the index was the production of a Citizen Budget. Now that this is a reality, Ghali said he hopes Egypt will be included in the group of countries that provide a significant amount of information. OBS is issued by the International Budget Partnership which collaborates with civil society around the world to use budget analysis and advocacy as a tool to improve effective governance and reduce poverty. Another requirement of the index that is yet unmet by Egypt is a pre-budget statement which sets forth the broad parameters that will define the government's forthcoming budget. But Ghali said during the press conference he will attempt to issue a pre-budget statement ahead of next year's budget plan. Ghali also said the government intends to issue a Citizen Budget for every governorate. It has already started work on the governorates of Assiut and Menoufiya.
