Tunis: Tunisia ranked 104th (out of 125 countries) in the Open Budget Survey 2023 released last May 29. The OBS ranks countries according to their performance across the three pillars of accountability in national budget processes. It is the world's only comparative, independent and regular assessment of public participation, oversight, and transparency in national budgets in 125 countries. Tunisia received a score of 26 points, dropping 26 points and 33 spots in international rankings in comparison with the 2021 report. Tunisia took the 6th spot in the Arab region behind Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon down from the second position in 2013-2015. This is the result of failure to publish the 2023 finance bill before its promulgation by the Presidency of the Republic and the temporary absence of the legislative institution in the period covered by the survey, given the key role of this institution in the budgetary process according to international standards of open budget. The methodology used by the International Budget Partnership (IBP) to calculate the Open Budget Index is based on a set of quantitative parameters that are determined by international standards- notably those adopted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT) and the World Bank- to assess the public availability of a country's eight key budget documents: executive's budget proposal, pre-budget statement, enacted budget, in-year reports, mid-year review, year-end report, audit report and the Citizen's Budget. The report also outlines a number of shortcomings in Tunisia's budget transparency, namely failure to release the guidance note of the State budget and the half-year report of the budget implementation, the delay in publishing the report of the Audit Court on the the budget review act and the absence of details on the implementation of programmes and projects in monthly budget implementation reports. Concurrently with the Open Budget Index (OBI), the report provides a participation score that is the degree to which each of the executive, the legislature, and the supreme audit institution provides opportunities for the public to engage during different cycles of the budget process. Tunisia ranked third in the Arab region with 4 points out of 100, behind Egypt and Morocco, down 10 points on 2021 rankings. This unearthed several challenges for Tunisia, including citizen or civil society engagement in budget preparation and strengthening the role of regulatory and support agencies, particularly the National Taxation Board which role remained formal. The report recommends that the Audit Court's report on the budget review law be published bearing in mind that the last one covered the year 2020, along with the guidance note of the 2025 State budget and the six-monthly report for 2024, in line with international standards. Additional recommendations are mainly including information on the furtherance of State projects and programmes in monthly and annual reports on the budget implementation and making more space and opportunities available for civil society so that it can attend meetings of parliamentary committees. Tunisia needs to adopt innovative mechanisms, such as citizen participation platforms which fosters involvement in the process of drafting the budget and following up its implementation. It is also advisable to put in place similar mechanisms in the Audit Court to help external experts and civil society take an active part in developing the court's action plan and in audits and activate the role of the National taxation Board while supporting its independence and impartiality and providing it with needed resources for conducting studies and drafting reports. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse