Open Budget Information - What's Situation?

State of the legal framework

The adoption of the Law on Receiving Information by the Parliament of Azerbaijan in 2005 was welcomed by the most authoritative international organizations. These were the years of the popularity of initiatives of openness, transparency of governments, and the adoption of such a law in Azerbaijan could not be ignored.

The history of this law is also significant due to the fact that its draft was developed by civil society organizations (CS). And the Council of Europe approved and recommended to the Parliament a draft drawn up not by the government, but by the CS. The deputies approved and adopted this draft with minor changes.

This law was even considered one of the best laws on information adopted in the OSCE and the Council of Europe. The law establishes the rules for disclosing all public information online, creating a website for all structures that own information, and provides for the establishment and legal support of the institution of information ombudsman.

It cannot be said that the law has started work, and what is worse, after the adoption of the law, it has undergone major changes. However, it is impossible not to see the implementation of a number of measures arising from the requirements of the law. Most of the state structures of the upper echelon have created Internet sites in accordance with the law. Although not all the information declared in the law has been opened or placed on the websites, and the content of the latter is very poor.

The data, which information owners do not want to disclose, are, first of all, budget and financial information. Several structures - with the exception of the Ministries of Taxes and Communications, and the State Commission on State Service (although they also do not disclose such information in full) - keep information about their budget in secret. And this article is devoted to how the requirements of the legislation related to the transparency of budget information are complied with.

The Law On Obtaining Information imposes on state agencies the obligation to proactively disclose information about the budget and its expenses. As we mentioned earlier, the majority persistently ignores this requirement of the law. Despite the fact that the law requires state structures to "publicly disclose" such data, they are not only not announced, but are not provided even upon direct requests for budget information. For example, in 2010 30, in 2011 - 41, and in 2013, 10 requests from the Institute for Media Rights of similar content were either completely ignored or were met with a refusal to provide such information.

Keeping budget information secret is also supported by the courts. Thus, in the more than 50 trials conducted by the Media Rights Institute in 2008-2014, the courts could not provide for the disclosure of any budget data when making relevant requests. Over the past 5 years in the receipt of such information there has been a negative trend. However, the amendments made to the legislation in 2018, related specifically to the disclosure of budgetary and financial information, revived the hope that this trend will change.

Open financial information - new transformations

In June 2018, the Parliament of Azerbaijan amended Article 30 of the Law on Receipt of Information, which noted that the procedure for posting information on the Internet about the annual financial activities of information owners and their use of funds transferred from the state budget or allocated property will be determined by the Cabinet of Ministers.

This provision was the 26th amendment to the law since 2005, although prior to the introduction of this amendment, the law directly imposed on organizations the obligation to post this information on their websites.

In November, 4 months after the introduction of this amendment to the law, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted the new Rules for "Placing in the Internet information resources data on the annual financial activities of state-budget organizations, legal entities of public law created on behalf of the state, extrabudgetary state funds, and business communities, 30% and more percent of shares (shares) of which belong to the state, including information on the use of funds issued by them from the state budget or property allocated to them."

Structures to which the Rules relate should post on their websites information about their annual financial activities, and about the use of state budget funds or property allocated to them. Moreover, this should be done after the end of the reporting period, but no later than April 30 of the following year.

How do organizations follow the rules?

Since April 30, more than 2 weeks have passed. In order to identify the degree of implementation of this rule, we visited the websites of the upper echelon organizations, and this is what we found:

On the website of the Cabinet of Ministers, which adopted the aforementioned Rule, there is no Reports section at all, and there is a section Documents consisting of 3 subsections - Resolutions, Orders and Letters. The structure has not posted financial information on the website.

The next website we monitored is the site of the Ombudsman. It is this structure that controls the implementation of the Law On Obtaining Information. The website has a section "Ensuring the implementation of the Law "On Obtaining Information", but ironically, it does not contain financial information - there is nothing but laws and a related reference book. In the section "Documents and Publications" only the report of the Commissioner for 2018 is posted.

From the monitored sites of other 25 ministries, state committees and commissions, until April 30, only 2 had the Financial Report Disclosure Rule complied with.

One of them is the website of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies (MTCHT), which has the subsection Reports, but it is difficult to find it (you can do that at least in 6-7 clicks). It is located in the Media section. The MTCHT financial report compiled in accordance with the form approved by the Cabinet of Ministers is located at the following link:

http://mincom.gov.az/upload/files/fb94118506ebe8cd1a4627d9a2ca8f53.pdf. This report is posted on the website on the last day of the deadline - April 30th. According to its content, the document is poor: it includes only figures showing the total amount of funds received by the Ministry.

Another organization that complied with the requirement to post financial reports in an accessible place for everyone until April 30 is the Chamber of Accounts. The opportunities created by the Chamber for access to this document can be considered exemplary in the practice of Azerbaijan: it can be reached in just 3-4 clicks.

The financial report of the organization is in the report on the activities of the enterprise for 2018. This is a negative nuance, because the subordination of the disclosure of financial information to a special rule requires separate provision of information. Go to the report at this link - http://sai.gov.az/upload/files/HESABAT%202018-FINAL.pdf.

Compliance with the financial disclosure requirement by only two of the nearly 30 structures is a very bad indicator. Some organizations may have posted financial reports on their website, but it is very important in which section it is placed. If during a logical search it is impossible to get a report other than in more than 15 clicks, then this should be regarded as confidentiality of information.

What is the international experience of access to information? Data access should be possible with a maximum of 5 clicks. This is a high level of access to information. Access in 5-10 clicks is considered moderately comfortable. If for this you need up to 15 clicks, this is the lowest level of access. More clicks are considered hiding information.

What to do?

As we noted earlier, the situation with the disclosure of financial information is quite bad. And what should be done?

Concealment of information provided for in the Law "On Obtaining Information" creates administrative liability. Violation of the requirements of the Code of Administrative Offenses provides for punishment in the form of a fine imposed on the information owner in the amount of 100 to 1,500 manat.

Despite the fact that violations have been committed for many years, this provision of the Code on Administrative Offenses has not yet been applied. While in order to increase the level of openness, these mechanisms should be activated.

In increasing transparency, the Ombudsman Institute plays an important role, which should monitor the implementation of the Law on Obtaining Information.

The Constitutional Law "On the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) in the Republic of Azerbaijan" imposes on the Ombudsman the obligation to supervise the exact and full implementation of the obligation to publicly disclose information.

In the current situation, the Ombudsman may require organizations to issue financial reports on their websites. It is really not difficult to do, because all organizations that own public information still make up and submit a financial report to the Ministry of Finance and the Chamber of Accounts. And they just have to put this document on their website...