CIVIL MONITORING OF THE LEGISLATIVE
NEGOTIATION OF THE BUDGET AND FISCAL REFORM

Throughout this year, Fundar monitored closely the work of the Budget Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, related with the negotiation of the budget for 2007, as well as the meetings and conferences held between congress men and women, government officials and specialists regarding Fiscal Reform.

The Legislative Watch team was present at all the different phases of the negotiation of the financial package and requested information, most of all, about all the petitions received by the Budget Commission and about the 2007 Budget ruling, which was not fully published in the Parliamentary Journal.

During the meetings of the Finance Commission, Fundar took part in an informative session about the fiscal reform, along with the academic sector, and starting from March a questionnaire for the Latin American Index of Budget Transparency was distributed among deputies to be answered.

Furthermore, the results of researches about the Performance Evaluation System and about Budget Transparency were distributed and Fundar shared its experiences during a presentation made in Congress.

The negotiation process within the Budget Commission and among the parliamentary coordinators of the political parties was found to be highly centralized, thus excluding all the other commissions that compose the Deputies’ Chamber.

Furthermore, a lack of formal mechanisms for information access was detected during the meetings. For example, more than half of the initiatives (presented both by deputies and government agencies) received by the Budget Commission during its first year in office, sought to correct the asymmetry that prevails in Congress during the budget discussion, as well as the irregularity of information between the Ministry of Finance and the Legislative Power.

 

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