Page 19 - CMA Journal (May-Jun 2026)

F oc us S ec t ion

Transparency- Global Evidence 2022, respectively, was preceded by this same failure A key structural answer is the emergence of investments, a decrease of 6.1% in infrastructure cost
(IMF, 2025). Independent Fiscal Institutions – IFIs (parliamentary overruns, and an increase of 2.3 percentage points in Table 1 - Six-Pillar Strategic Framework
This is a polarized world in which a global survey – the budget o ces that give independent forecasts and project completion rates (Dabla-Norris et al., 2025). The
Open Budget Survey (OBS) 2025 – was carried out in Institutional Accountability Mechanisms analyses of the scal situation) from 38 to 52 countries Pillar Objective Key Actions
125 countries. On average, the world rating for by 2025 (OECD, 2025). more civil society and the free media will be able to
transparency is 47/100, which highlights that some 1. Supreme Audit Institutions react to the disclosures, the more robust civil society 1. Institutional Secure SAI and oversight Constitutional mandates; merit appointments;
capacity to allow the public to hold governments to Digital Transformation of Financial will be. Independence independence multi-year funding
account is limited in most governments. Only 22 The rst line of defense against scal mismanagement Governance The study on the impact of transparency reform over 2. Comprehensive Publish complete, timely scal IPSAS adoption; open portals; citizen budgets
The double pillars of public sector accountability are terms: What makes the countries (principally Nordic) have scores above 75, is the Suppression Audit Institutions (SAIs). According the last 50 years across 40 countries rati ed the above Disclosure data
to the global assessment of INTOSAI (2025), 97% of 194
nancial governance and transparency. This article path of nancial while 36% have scores below 31, considered as Fiscal accountability is being recon gured, and the ndings (Grimmelikhuijsen et al., 2025) which showed 3. Digital Infrastructure Deploy integrated systems with IFMIS; e-procurement with open contracting; AI
combines theory with evidence from 142 countries to governance reforms to ‘minimal or no’ scal information (IBP, 2025). SAIs have formal audit mandates, 41% have architecture is changing as digital tools are that an average of 12.4 points more in the last 5 years transparency controls audit tools
examine the links between good public nance and real accountability and There is a polarized world in the Open Budget Survey operational independence, and the tools necessary to transforming it. Integrated Financial Management increases trust in scal institutions, whereas
better development outcomes in a comparative good public outcomes? (OBS) 2025 in all 125 countries. The global average carry out performance audits e ectively. Most Information Systems (IFMIS) are now in place in 91 transparency reforms that do not last over time 4. Legislative Capacity Strengthen parliamentary nancial Independent Fiscal Institutions; PAC capacity;
analysis of case studies. At the core of the article are the Theoretical transparency score is 47/100, highlighting that in most importantly, Nordic model countries with SAIs that are countries, and are used to automate the control of decreases trust by 7.8 points on average. The bad news scrutiny pre-budget hearings
results from the Open Budget Survey 2025, the Fiscal governments, it is di cult to hold them accountable to independent have 31% less irregularities in expenditures and to monitor them in real-time. is that for scal openness, on average, if conditions 5. Civil Society Create structured civic oversight OGP action plans; participatory budgeting;
Monitor report of the IMF for 2025, the PEFA Foundations the public due to a lack of transparency. The majority of procurement and 44% more instances of audit Despite this, however, the quality of IFMIS is highly move from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile Engagement spaces scal watchdog grants
assessments conducted by the World Bank, and data Three theoretical the Nordic countries scored above 75 (good or recommendations being implemented, which variable: 35% of IFMIS deployments in low-income across the 25 scal transparency scores of the IMF, 6. International Align with global standards; IMF FTE; PEFA; INTOSAI programs; OBS
from Transparency International, which illustrate traditions are relevant to excellent), while only 22 countries have scores higher supports the Nordic model of institutionalized audit countries from 2005 to 2020 were not functioning after sovereign borrowing spreads decrease by 47 basis Coordination leverage peer learning benchmarking
critical transparency de ciencies, examine the study of nancial than 75 (good or excellent), and 36% less than 31 accountability. ve years as a result of a lack of training and political points (0.47%), which lowers the cost of public Source: Authors' synthesis; informed by IMF (2025), World Bank (2025), IBP (2025), OECD (2024)
(minimal or no scal information) (IBP, 2025).
accountability mechanisms and processes at the governance. Principal opposition to system-imposed controls (Andrews & borrowing.
institutional and digital levels, and provide a six-pillar -agent theory (Jensen & Turkewitz, 2025). Conclusion • Fox, J. A., & Haight, L. (2024). Open scal data and accountability
roadmap to guide transparency reform. Indeed, the Meckling, 1976) has two Opening up scal data portals now, in 67 countries, to Persistent Challenges demand: Evidence from 55 countries. Governance, 37(2),
number of infrastructure completion rates had approaches: the international standards of timeliness and The basic obstacle to transparency is a political one Financial governance is not a lofty and formal term - it 411–436.
increased by 34% and the number of reports of citizen-government relationship is one of delegated machine-readability (GODI, 2026). They are and not technical. Opacity favors incumbents, is an integral part of the 'DNA' of a competent and • Grimmelikhuijsen, S., Meijer, A., & Brandsma, G. J. (2025). Fiscal
procurement fraud decreased by 27% in countries that authority, and there is information asymmetry. documented to have powerful feedback loops including resource rents, patronage procurement, and legitimate state. The empirical evidence reported here transparency and institutional trust: A longitudinal analysis of 40
reported scores above 60 on the Open Budget Index, Financial reporting, auditing, and lawmaking are between information provision and demand for the nancing of politically sensitive activities, through is instructive: Policies that are clear and countries. Public Administration Review, 85(3), 502–519.
to illustrate a democratic principle of transparency. good-governance policies result in investment • IBP (International Budget Partnership). (2025). Open budget
monitoring technologies that help ll these gaps. accountability, with countries with high-quality portals o -budget nancing. The feature strategy is selective outcomes and, eventually, reduced institutional trust, survey 2025. International Budget Partnership. IMF. (2025). Fiscal
Introduction Public delegation on three levels (citizen, minister, and having 23% more investigative reporting on public disclosure, which means the publication of positive borrowing costs, and corruption. Poor and monitor: Navigating scal challenges, October 2025. IMF
bureaucrat to contractor) exacerbates agency issues at nance, 31% more citizen complaints about information about the nances, but hiding liabilities Publications.
Ensuring the acceptance of the citizenry of the irregularities and 18% higher rates of follow-up by the and risks (Kolstad & Wiig, 2016; Kopits, 2024). marginalized communities are increasingly impacted
government's responsibility for public nances is the each level. SAI (Fox & Haight, 2024). by an opaque issue. There are signs of development in • INTOSAI. (2025). Global assessment of supreme audit institution
core of the social contract between citizens and the Institutional economics (North, 1990) further asserts Technical barriers are added to political barriers in this world, yet faltering. independence and capacity 2025. INTOSAI General Secretariat.
government. There is an underlying assumption of that complementing forms of PFM rules (such as scal Reform is gaining steam with frontier technologies. A low-income contexts. Every three years, PEFA The capacity to do independent auditing and open • NAO (National Audit O ce). (2025). Arti cial intelligence in
good stewardship in all the tax levies, money responsibility laws, procurement, and audit laws) need blockchain payroll veri cation system employed by assessments (2022–2025) are conducted in 68 budget platforms has been greatly enhanced for government audit: Year one implementation report. UK National
appropriated, and all the contracts that are issued. The informal norms and the enforcement capacity. Sierra Leone has cut its wage bill ghost-worker rate low-income countries, and the results reveal that digital governance since 2020. Without demand-side Audit O ce.
impact of lost promises – caused by misallocation, Andrews et al. (2017) captured this point under the from 8.3% (saving USD 42 million annually), according annual budgets are issued on time by 74 percent of actors (a free press, a ourishing civil society, a • OECD Network of Parliamentary Budget O cials. (2025).
corruption, or intentional opacity – is quanti able in banner of 'isomorphic mimicry,' which denotes The last Fiscal Transparency Evaluation (FTE) 72 to UNDP (2025). The UK National Audit O ce (NAO) countries, while only 22 percent have issued year-end Independent scal institutions: 2025 global stock-take. OECD
incomplete treatment facilities, ghost workers on governments taking the 'forms' of 'best-practice' country assessment by the IMF shows repeatedly that 2. Public Procurement AI-powered tool for anomaly detection boosted the nancial statements that have received a clean audit Legislature that acts), transparency, however, is Publishing.
payroll, and eroding public con dence. Public procurement encompasses the world's biggest detection of odd transactions. A report from the opinion within the 12-month delay allowed. The insigni cant. The urgency to invest in nancial • OGP (Open Government Partnership). (2025). Open government
institutions, but without the 'functional substance’. This scal risk disclosure su ers from weak performance. governance has become greater, as public nances partnership annual report 2025. OGP Support Unit.
The scal expense is astounding. The Fiscal Monitor failure mode is present in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 68% of assessed countries achieve ‘basic or below' in and most at-risk public nance spending, representing National Audit O ce (NAO) of the UK showed that its overall picture of a transparent landscape is still far become more concentrated, the need for nancial
(2025) by the IMF states that scal mismanagement or which doesn't restrict spending, and in the Supreme scal risk management: contingent liabilities of USD 13 trillion or 15-20% of the world's GDP. (OECD AI-powered anomaly detection tool helped to detect from fair (PEFA Secretariat, 2025; IBP, 2025), due to the resources for climate action has been growing, and • PEFA Secretariat. (2025). PEFA global dataset 2025: Budget
opacity directly costs government revenues 2-3% of Audit Institution, which never takes its recommended public-private partnerships, state enterprises, and 2024) TI's 2025 cost estimate in weak-governance unusual transactions.by 47% compared to lack of data quality, citizens' accessibility, and citizen debts have been rising because of the pandemic. We transparency in 112 countries. World Bank. Transparency
International. (2025). Corruption perceptions index 2025.
GDP, or an entire health budget in the low-income measures into action. These are questions Open climate obligations are not su ciently reported. Each environments is from 10% to 25% of the procurement conventional audit sampling (NAO, 2025). Applications budget summaries in accessible language in most can't a ord to do without accountable public Transparency International.
countries. But the narrative of PFM reform is more Government Partnership (as there are 78 countries of of Zambia's and Sri Lanka's scal crises in 2021 and budget. The returns of this are particularly striking due are indicative of ongoing scal assurance that is parts of the country. institutions. Can we a ord to get them away or not?
complex globally: although the public nance to the positive impact of Ukraine's Prozorro open continuous and automated, but the democratization • UNDP. (2025). Blockchain for payroll integrity in Sierra Leone:
Impact evaluation report. UNDP.
landscape is the most transparent it has ever been, origin as of 2025) is posing to the governments: what is contracting platform on reducing tender prices by 11% of these SAIs to lower capacity is still an unful lled Strategic Policy Framework References
with digital governance tools and open budget needed to allow citizens to exercise meaningful below benchmark prices; in 5 years of implementing agenda. The evidence is adequate to advocate a 6-pillar • World Bank. (2025). Public nancial management analytics: Key
platforms, as well as independent audit bodies, there is oversight? By de ning an agenda based on the transparency features, it has saved USD 1.5 billion in strategy on how to improve nancial governance. The • Andrews, M., & Turkewitz, J. (2025). Functional assessment of performance indicators. World Bank Governance Global Practice.
IFMIS implementations in low-income countries.
still a long way to go. Now the only thing that remains Movement for Open Government, transcending the tender costs (EBRD, 2025). Transparency and Public Outcomes pillars are ordered from the ground up, in preparation
to be dealt with is data quality, political will, and citizen rules and regulations towards democratic 3. Legislative Oversight for the demands side; this is based on the experience • World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 10812. About the Author: Prof. Dr. Salman Masood Sheikh is a
engagement. participation. (OGP, 2025). Indeed, these frameworks It is now a well-established link between transparency of other countries that have successfully been • Dabla-Norris, E., Kochhar, K., & Ricka, F. (2025). The e ciency Professor of Finance, and Corporate Trainer with 24 years of
emphasize a political and civil society basis and a The percentage of countries surveyed by OBS whose and outcomes based on empirical research. According dividend of scal transparency. IMF Working Paper WP/25/087. academic and 12 years of corporate training experience, holding
The theoretical analysis and empirical evidence, legislatures have enough time and information to to the World Bank 2010-2024 study of 104 countries, reformed, such as the pillar of producing basic a PhD in Business Administration along with FCMA, FPFA, AIFA
together with policy prescriptions, presented here, demand necessary to achieve good performance of review budgets before they are adopted is 38% (IBP, each 10-point increase in the OBS is correlated with an infrastructure rst, followed by demands side matters • EBRD. (2025). Procurement reform impact assessment: Ukraine (UK), AIPA (AUS) and EOMS (USA). Currently working as Dean,
ProZorro platform 2016–2025. EBRD Transition Report Technical
discuss the question of nancial governance in these the PFM reform. 2025). increase of 4.2 percentage points in e ciency of public later, such as in Rwanda, Indonesia, and Estonia. Annex. Faculty of Economics and Commerce, Lahore.

ICMA’s Chartered Management Accountant, May-Jun 2026 17