Contrary to what was projected, the Covid-19 pandemic did not affect the quality of the budget information of the country’s federal entities, revealed the State Budget Information Barometer (BEEP) 2022 edition of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (imco).
In a virtual press conference, the director of Imco, Valeria Moy, recalled that the BEEP evaluates the quality of the information of the revenue laws and the expenditure budgets of the federal entities of the country, focusing on good practices in terms of transparency and government accounting standards.
“In the Imco we understand the quality of budget information as the access and availability of information to the general public (…) It is sought that the federal entities show citizens the expenditure of public resources in a structured and clear way” , assured.
The BIEP 2022 contemplates the evaluation of the 32 states of the country, with a total of 116 criteria grouped into 10 sections (public access, structure and open data, accounting harmonization, powers and Secretariats, municipalities, tabulators-places, public debt, federal resources, specific items and reallocation-surpluses), each one measures a different dimension of public finances.
Derived from having remembered the objectives and the evaluation methodology of the BEEPthe researcher of imcoAna Lambarri, announced that for the 2022 edition, the 32 states managed to obtain an average score of 93%, 8 percentage points above the previous evaluation (that of 2019) and that it also meant the highest score since it was created the indicator, which was in 2008.
In 2008, the average compliance in the BEEP it was 53% and it was from 2014 when it began to register an increase, with 65% in that edition. For 2015 and 2016 the ratings were 76%; for 2017 they were 83%; and in 2019 with 85 percent.
As of 2019, the decision was made to publish the edition of the BEEP biannually, for the 2022 edition the information evaluated is from 2021.
“In 14 years, the states went from having incomplete or nonexistent documents to approved budgets and downloadable information,” explained the director of the Imco.
The coordinator of Government and Finance of the ImcoManuel Guadarrama, explained that the entities continued to comply, in the midst of a pandemic, in uploading budget information, because a consolidation of best transparency practices is being generated, for example, the states are betting on digitization.
We have that the increase in compliance with transparency obligations was maintained and in many states it improved, that is, not only did they continue to comply with this breakdown of budget information, but there was an adoption of best practices (…) There was no a significant impact of the pandemic,” he said.
He indicated that this is the result of a decade of evaluation, where the states have managed to move from presenting incomplete documents, and often non-existent, to standardized and itemized budgets; also to present kilos of paper, to a search engine and downloadable information; of not having access to official electronic newspapers, to the publication of complete budget information.
The Director of Institutions and Governance, Francisco Varela, specified that despite this result in the BEEPit must be borne in mind that in other IMCO indicators, the states presented different results, precisely, it can be noted that the pandemic did generate negative impacts.
For example, with the exercise evaluations of the expenses of the subnationals, there was an important distortion.
Results
In this latest edition of BEEPa total of 12 states reached 100% compliance in their evaluation (Baja California, Campeche, Chiapas, Coahuila, Durango, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Puebla, Querétaro, Quintana Roo and Yucatán).
The states that obtained 99% in the evaluation are Nayarit and Nuevo León, while 10 entities obtained compliance between 98 and 90% (Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Colima, Tlaxcala, Sonora, Tamaulipas, Baja California Sur and Tabasco). ).
On the contrary, Guerrero is the only entity in the country that obtained a rating of less than 70 percent.
On which are the states that have carried out and maintained the best practices within the BEEP, Ana Lambarri highlighted the states of Baja California, Puebla and Guanajuato; all three have maintained a rating above 98% for at least three consecutive evaluations.
Precisely, Baja California Sur went from having a rating of 0 in 2008 to 91% in 2022, while Guanajuato from 40 to 100% and Querétaro from 43 to 100 percent.
Proposals
In order to generate best practices in state budget transparency, IMCO developed three proposals, such as having evaluation units that link the results of their performance and the allocation of resources in the following fiscal year in a mandatory manner.
It is also suggested to shorten the gap between the approved budget and the exercised budget, and to institutionalize the best practices of government accounting and budget transparency for the preparation and approval of budgets. revenue laws and expenditure budgets.
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