The General Budget Directorate formally received the results of the Open Budget survey which, for the first time, places the Dominican Republic in 9th place among the countries that exhibit greater budget transparency and 3rd place in Latin America, only after Mexico and Brazil.
The Open Budget survey was conducted through Fundación Solidaridad and places the country in 9th place out of 120 countries evaluated to measure levels of transparency.
The document prepared by the International Budget Partnership also highlighted that the country exhibits significant, constant and sustained progress.
The Budget Director, José Rijo Presbot and a technical team of the institution received the document from a delegation of the Solidarity Foundation composed of Juan Castillo, Katia Lambis and Alfredo Matías.
Juan Castillo, at the time of the presentation, congratulated the Dominican Republic for holding the position and being a reference for other countries in terms of budget transparency. “If the country is doing well, we are doing well,” he said.
On his side, José Rijo Presbot thanked for the distinction and said that “this is not an act of delivery, but a recognition of the work that the Government of President Luis Abinader has been developing with transparency and compliance with the law. Consequently, we are fighting against impunity and corruption”.
Greater mechanisms for social participation
The Budget Director emphasized at the event that the Government works with high levels of rigor in the delivery and social control processes “This year for the formulation of the Budget we have included new activities, to open the doors to the citizenry. Civil society organizations must follow up on the processes and formulation of the Budget to influence and have greater social control”, said José Rijo Presbot.
He highlighted the work of the Digepres with local governments to update their Programmatic Structure and said that, to date, work has begun on changes and improvements in 23 municipalities in different provinces of the country. He also referred to the effort made to keep the citizens updated on the actions of this administration through different mechanisms.
In the activity, held in the meeting room Juan Bosch, located in Digepres, the survey was socialized in a synthesized way to the managers and technical personnel of the institution.
Advances in transparency
According to the results of the Open Budget survey, advances are observed in the availability of information related to transparency, specifically with the Executive’s budget proposal, the preliminary document and the mid-year review, which have contributed to the country being able to move up from position 12 in 2019 to position 9 in 2021 within the 120 countries participating in the Open Budget Survey.
The Dominican Republic is also among the 17 countries in the world that publish all eight key budget documents.
Open Budget through Fundación Solidaridad
It is a fact-based research tool that uses internationally recognized criteria to assess governments’ access to budget information, the formal opportunities they exhibit for citizen participation, and the role of institutions in budget oversight.
The Open Budget Survey is the world’s only comparative, independent and periodic evaluation of transparency, oversight and public participation in public budgets in 120 countries.
In the Dominican Republic, the survey is conducted through Fundación Solidaridad.
