Bangladesh - Belgium

Citizens’ Voice and Accountability Evaluation – Bangladesh Country Case Study
present CSOs contest fait accompli budgets that are presented to Parliament. CSOs need to engage
at the earlier stage of budget analysis. At present MOF invites some analysis from academics at the
budget analysis stage but is suspicious of inviting wider and more “popular” forms of participation.
4. Risks to successful accountability are posed by formal institutional rules as well as informal
organisational culture. In this case the Official Secrets Act is still in force which allows MOF to shelter
behind the law. This needs to be tackled and redressed. One key informant commented: “In this day
and age can we (continue to) separate ourselves from the wider audience?” To this end, the media
in Bangladesh plays an important role in pushing for greater transparency.
The “cadre culture” in the civil service prevents flexible allocations of technicians across Ministries.
Introducing a MTBF approach in line ministries is hindered by a command economy Planning
Commission that does not have that mentality (although incremental gains through overseas courses
and on the job training for up to 100 officials so that they can be “change agents”)
5. Social auditing of budget implementation performance has been shown to be effective and provide
opportunities for civil society oversight. They are sexy and have attracted donor interest. However,
with structural blockages preventing release of up to 80% of the budget at national level, these types
of downstream audit need to go hand in hand with efforts to release budgets (i.e. there’s no point in
hanging local schools, hospitals and children’s homes out to dry if they don’t get budgets and are
therefore not in control of improving performance).
8. The Audit Accounts cadre only has 200 people out of 1.2 million civil servants: one-third on the
railways, one-third in army and one-third split between an accounts function and audit function. As
one key informant observed wryly: “which leaves you a bit short when there are 32 Chief Accounts
Officers!”.
III: Models of Change Developed
The model of change underpinning the FMRP is geared towards improving financial management
through strengthened accounting systems (see Figure 1 below). The model is based on the “effect
assumption” that technical improvements in accounting and reporting will provide the basis for more
transparent and accountable systems.
Most of the project activities have improved the technical capacity within government as detailed in
Figure 1. Some of these technical changes have allowed the AGO to improve oversight of budget
allocations. This has delivered some successes, most notably in the recovery of Taka 800 crore from
line ministries through auditing.
The translation of these technical improvements to more systemic improved CVA outcomes has,
however, been more problematic. This has largely been a function of the rapid politicisation of
technical information generated. As a result, effect assumptions about generating information to
enhance accountability needs to be reality checked. Information on geographical allocation of
budgets, for example, is very sensitive and very quickly becomes politicised. Similarly, as discussed
above, no one wants to examine recent audits which can be used to accuse party members of poor
performance, even if the PAC were functioning under a Parliamentary democracy.
This politicisation and its implications for CVA outcomes has been cited by the FMRP project partners
to justify their strategy resisting naïve donor enthusiasm for civil society oversight and instead
concentrating on improving systems and technical capacities in expectation of future institutional
change in parliamentary procedures and accountability structures once the suspension of
parliamentary procedures has been lifted.
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