Improving Local Budget Transparency (BOJ0003)

Issues to be addressed: Lack of public trust to the government due to local budget system that is prone to corruption activities. Primary objective Increased public trust to local budget system and strengthening corruption prevention efforts through fiscal policies that is transparent in accordance to Indonesia’s FOI Law (Law No. 14/ 2008) Commitment Description: We are committed to engage the four stakeholder groups in the society (academia, private sector, government and community) in every cycle of policy making from, planning, implementation to M&E and last reporting. We are also committed to publish key output of each of this cycle in accordance to public information disclosure law (Law No. 14/ 2008) OGP Challenge: Promotion of greater transparency, participation and innovation Relevance: A government that is more open and accountable Ambition: Fiscal transparency policies will strengthen corruption prevention efforts and increase public trust to the local government

3. Improving Local Budget Transparency

Commitment text

Objective: Increased public trust to local budget system and strengthening corruption prevention efforts through fiscal policies that is transparent in accordance to Indonesia’s FOI Law (No 14/2008).

Description: We are committed to engage the four stakeholder groups in the society (academia, private sector, government and community) in every cycle of policy making from, planning, implementation to M&E and last reporting. We are also committed to publish key output of each of this cycle in accordance to public information disclosure law (Law No. 14/ 2008)

Ambition: Fiscal transparency policies will strengthen corruption prevention efforts and increase public trust to the local government

Milestones

Year 2016:

1. Publication of Bojonegoro Regency budget (APBD) summary in the BPKAD website based on public information disclosure principles

2. Bojonegoro to host an OGP Festival

Year 2017:

3. Publication of the government work plan (RKPD) and regional budget (APBD)

4. Publication of detailed Bojonegoro budget (APBD) of each work unit (SKPD) through SKPD’s web/information service (PPID)

Commitment Overview

Commitment Aim

Overall Objective & Relevance

While commitment #2 (Enhancing Village Government Accountability) focused on bringing a new access-to-information mechanism to the village governance levels, this commitment addresses accessibility at higher level, the regency. The Government of Bojonegoro is committed to Open Government by publishing a work plan and a regional budget in order to increase public's access to information regarding the budgeting cycle.

The Government of Bojonegoro did not publish the budget summary online before the implementation of this commitment, the information was only available upon request. The commitment aimed to change this (milestone 3.1) in accordance to Indonesia’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Law (No. 14 of 2008). The FOI law provides a structure for local governments in Indonesia to be more open to publics for any development programs, including financial issues.

Because the regency’s budget is an aggregate of many subunits, the Government of Bojonegoro urges each subunit to submit their work plans and budgets and to have them published. This action improves public awareness of the development plans and their budget allocation for the ongoing year. Starting in the year 2017, Bojonegoro aimed to publish its budgetary report and their work plans for this year. Bojonegoro aimed through this commitment to perform open government by opening their financial plan and report in 2017. Citizens and the broader public would have the opportunity to inquire about programs to be implemented in 2017, costs and implementation activities. The Government of Bojonegoro is trying to step forward in publishing their year plans, instead of only the budgetary report. This would be a strategy to trigger civic participation by improving access to information of financial issues.

Specificity and Potential Impact

The commitment’s specificity is considered as medium. It targets transparency of work plans and budgets of every work unit in the Government of Bojonegoro. However, it also calls for an OGP festival without providing information on how this event will be carried forward, who it is targeted to and how it will contribute to the objective of the commitment (increasing fiscal transparency in the Regency). Publishing this information could be a significant step to open access-to-information regarding the regency’s development process. However, it is unclear whether this information will be published in a way that is accessible to citizens and if it will reach key stakeholders.

Completion
Substantial

The Government of Bojonegoro has completed all milestones of the commitment.

The Government of Bojonegoro created an IT-based financial system to complete milestones 3.1 and 3.4. This website includes the APBD (the Regency’s budget) summary with basic information on the regency’s income and expenditures, downloadable as a PDF file. ^{http://bpkad.bojonegorokab.go.id/transparansi} It also includes the same information for the year 2017 and includes the budget for each work unit (up to 76 budgets). ^{http://bpkad.bojonegorokab.go.id/transparansi} To complete milestone 3.3, the Government published its work plan and the regional budget on the Regional Development Planning Agency’s official site. ^{http://bappeda.bojonegorokab.go.id/index.php/menu/detail/25/RKPD}

The most challenging to complete was Milestone 3.2, because of the Regency’s ambitious list of participants to invite at the national and local level. The event was a success for many who have studied open government implementation in local levels. In 19-20 October 2016, the Government of Bojonegoro hosted a two-day OGP Festival. The festival provided national participants with spaces to learn about the open government practice in the regency. This was an opportunity to strengthen in-group solidarity among Bojonegoro’s government officials by preparing the event and showcasing to citizens the region’s progress in open government. The event also served to exhibit the seven villages which scored the highest in the open government index created as part of commitment 2 (milestone 2.2.). ^{https://www.idfos.or.id/tujuh-desa-ikuti-festival-open-government-partnership/} According to Kusnandaka Tjatur, the festival showed some examples of open government practices in the regency, including the publication of village administration budget report and plan through various media (milestones 2.1 & 2.3). ^{https://www.opengovindonesia.org/news/180/menegaskan-pentingnya-keterbukaan-pemerintah-di-tingkat-daerah-festival-open-government-partnership-kabupaten-bojonegoro-tahun-2016} The event also meant to raise public awareness of open government in Bojonegoro and beyond. There were some speakers who gave their perspective about open government, such as: the Minister of Civil Servant Empowerment and Bureaucracy Reform, Asman Abnur; the Minister of National Development Planning for Indonesia, Bambang Brodjonegoro; the Minister of Village, Development of Disadvantage Region, and Transmigration, Eko Putro Sandjojo; the head of the Corruption Eradication Comission, Agus Rahardjo; the Regent of Bojonegoro Suyoto, and Yanuar Nugroho from the Presidential Office. ^{https://jatim.antaranews.com/berita/185321/festival-keterbukaan-pemerintahan-bojonegoro-dihadiri-tiga-menteri}

Early results: did it open government?
Access to information: Marginal

There has been an important improvement of the information disclosed to the public. Starting the year 2017, the government began to provide their financial plan and status, instead of only budget reports (3.1, 3.3, and 3.4). In this sense, the public now has access to the government’s spending plan as well as budget control actions. The festival (3.2) was a good opportunity for government officials to explain their actions regarding their responsibility for the use of public funds. Questions were not just coming from Bojonegoro’s citizens but also external parties. At the OGP Festival, the Indonesian Minister of Civil Servant Empowerment and Bureaucracy Reformation Asman Abnur said that he was very impressed with what he learned from Bojonegoro about how to manage local governance. “We can replicate this in other regions. It’s only a matter of willingness,” Asman said. ^{http://blog.opengovindonesia.org/2016/10/25/pemerintahan-terbuka-di-hilir-bengawan-solo/}

Nonetheless, internet infrastructure is still an aspect that needs to be given to all citizens. The secretary of Bojonegoro OGP Alit Purnayoga mentioned that the documents are Internet-based already, but there is a disparity of Internet access in the regency. ^{Alit Purnayoga, secretary of Bojonegoro’s OGP team, in focus discussion with OGP team’s members (August 10, 2017).} It would need more time for citizens to understand the government’s budget logic in a development plan and report. The government could not provide the IRM researcher with evidence about how the government manages to build capacity for public to engage in the budget process, except the Village School, which was facilitated by IDFoS (milestone 2.3).

Recommendations

The IRM researcher suggests increasing budget literacy engaging in capacity building measures for the people of Bojonegoro. The efforts should be focused on helping citizens understand the government’s budgetary process and how they can be involved in it. It should aim to increase the level of civic participation during the budgeting cycle, how to use the funds, and how to monitor, report, and evaluate its utilization. This will be very closely related to Milestone 2.4.