Rabat – Algeria ranks as the top “non-transparent” country in the world, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2017 report on government fiscal transparency.
Although Algeria made significant progress publically publishing its budget documents and obligations, the public information did not provide “comprehensive treatment of allocations to and earnings from state-owned enterprises.” Nor did it publish an executive budget proposal or end-of-year reports within a reasonable period of time, stated the U.S. State Department.
Algerian government kept a number of off-budget accounts, and while they were subject to audit with the results made public, the government apparently made “efforts to reduce the number of off-budget accounts,” according to the report, which assessed the practices of 140 governments.
Natural resource contracts or licenses awarded by the Algerian national government “were specified in law and appeared to be followed in practice.”
The State Department report indicated that Algeria’s fiscal transparency would be improved if it were to publish its executive budget proposal and end-of-year reports within a “reasonable period of time,” and if “the government provided detailed debt obligations and revenues and expenditures in the budget, including those for state-owned enterprises.”
Algeria ranked at the same level as Iraq, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Maldives, Lesotho, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Yemen.
In contrast, Morocco is ranked by the report as among “the countries that have met minimum requirements of fiscal transparency for 2017.”
Edited by Elisabeth Myers
