Lack of quality in public information in the province of Cordoba Abstract The provincial government of Cordoba has failed to successfully communicate budgetary spending to its citizens. Prompted by this concern, this paper represents a first attempt at measuring the degree of accessibility the public has to the government’s generation and spending of taxes by analyzing the content and organization of information currently made available by the government of the province of Cordoba via the budget link on its website. Furthermore, it acknowledges the success experienced by the State of Massachusetts in this regard under governor Deval Patrick. It utilizes the budget section on the Massachusetts website (www.mass.gov) as a potential model which could be adopted to reform and enhance Cordoba’s website and a standard by which to measure means of improving transparency. This analysis concludes that Cordoba has made a great deal of information available. However, in order to be comprehendible to the masses, its presentation requires alteration.
Introduction Argument for open government Transparency of government objectives and practices is widely regarded as a vital precondition for sustained macroeconomic growth, disciplined governance, and public trust and support. The right to access government information is essential to democratic participation and informed decision making. This process must occur through the provision of information to the public, private institutions, and the press. Access-to-information-laws, telecommunication infrastructure, and E-government encourage transparent budgets and suggest a nation’s aim for openness and an interest in doing business. As such, they serve as indicators to business leaders and donor nations who seek countries with transparent markets. As bodies that seek investors, governments benefit from a more stimulated economy. According to a study conducted by a journal, Government Information Quarterly, countries without such policies in place had a mean GDP of $4,499, about one-third of countries with policies that increased transparency, which had a mean GDP of $13,277 (2, 153).
Information and communication technologies In the past two decades, several governments have worked to increase openness. However, one of the greatest barriers they faced has been the failure to create equal access to information. Through this reform movement, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have surfaced as a solution. ICTs are a convenient, cost-efficient means of promoting transparency and reducing corruption. The Internet, in particular, has been used in a number of comprehensive transparency efforts.
In India, once property records were displayed online, business transactions became more efficient as knowledge spread quickly, and the opportunity for local officials to accept
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bribes was eliminated. As a result, farmers saved 1.32 days in waiting time and 806 million rupees in bribes. Prior to employing the electronic system, the average cost of one transaction was 100 rupees in bribes, while the electronic system costs a fee of two rupees (1, 266). In Chile, the ChileCompra e-procurement system allows members of the government and the public to compare the costs of bids made to and services purchased by the government. Its database includes over 500 outsourced services from more than 6,000 providers. This system saves an estimated about of $150 US each year by preventing price fixing or inflation by corrupt officials. Additionally, it expanded the number of small businesses that could participate in the government bidding process (1, 266). The United States developed websites that publicize the data of government expenditures, for stimulus dollars (www.recovery.gov), general funds (www.usaspending.gov), and information technology funds (www.IT.usaspending.gov). These sites are intended to serve as a system of checks, where the public may monitor government spending and increase its efficiency by identifying and eliminating wasteful projects. A number of similar websites have been created at the state level, with similar purposes (1, 266).
These are only a handful of examples of countries, which have employed the use of Internet to their advantage in promoting transparency and reducing corruption.
Web model Massachusetts’s government website is particularly accessible and informative due to a systematic representation of its content and clear, simply stated language. For example, the following links are listed under the ‘budget’ section on government and taxes: fiscal year 2013 budget process and documents, fiscal year 2012 budget process and documents, past budgets, summary of steps in the budget process, budget timeline, budget terminology, financial oversight and management offices. The outline below shows the content under each and the manner in which it is organized.
Fiscal year 2013 budget process and documents: Alongside this link is a brief summary of how and when the Massachusetts budget for the following fiscal year is created. • This section contains an overview of the budget process, clearly presented in eleven steps. Each step is titled and features a 1-2 sentence description of what it entails as well as the date by which is must be completed. Upon clicking a given date, all documents regarding said date are displayed. Fiscal year 2012 budget process and documents: Alongside this link is a statement explaining how the final budget is titled for the record. • This section contains similar information to the one above. It contains an overview of the budget process presented in eleven steps with titles, descriptions, and dates. Upon clicking a given date, all documents regarding said date are made available. Past budgets: Alongside this link is a definition of ‘fiscal year’, the time period by which the budget of Massachusetts is renewed. • This section contains the budget process and documents of the previous eight consecutive fiscal years. This information is categorized into eight links, each of which features the budget information for a given fiscal year. Summary of steps in the budget process: Alongside this link is a summary description of the information it contains.
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This section features a detailed overview of the budget process. It is divided into nine steps, each of which is labeled and includes a description. The description contains information on the people and committees involved during each step, the actions and proposals made my each, and the dates by which each step must be completed. Budget timeline: Alongside this link is a description of what it contains. • This section summarizes key milestones and activities in the budget process over one fiscal year. It is divided into subsections, each of which describes a period of a few months. Below each section is a bulleted list of the activities carried out to create a budget during the given months. Budget terminology: Alongside this link is a statement describing the contents it contains. • This section features a glossary of key terms and acronyms used in the record keeping of the Massachusetts budget. All terms are listed in alphabetical order and followed by 2-6sentence definition. Financial oversight and management offices: Alongside this link is a statement describing the contents it contains. • This section holds information on the agencies involved in the oversight and management of the state budget. It contains a list of all the agencies involved, listed in alphabetical order. The name of each agency is followed by a summary description of its precise role. Furthermore, the title of each agency is a link, which leads to its own page containing the mission statement of the given agency, staff directory, and research, among other information. •
The Massachusetts web page draws its strength from the clarity and comprehensiveness of the information it offers. Clearly organized, each link features a description of the contents it contains alongside it, increasing the efficiency with which one can find information. The budget section utilizes organized charts and bulleted lists alongside prose and summary descriptions to clearly display budgetary information. Furthermore, it includes educational information about people involved and the budgetary process, so that citizens can comprehensively understand statistical information. On the whole, it fosters engagement between the citizens of Massachusetts and the way in which the government collects and spends its money.
Cordoba’s government website In order to evaluate the quantity and quality of information presented on the budget section of the Córdoba website, we can look at the breakdown of its presentation. There are three sections: provincial year budgets, multi-year budgets, and budget classifications. Under provincial year budgets, is set of tables over eighteen pages describing the government’s expenditures for the current fiscal period. The tables identify the general department, which was funded by the government; for example, planning and finance, agriculture, technology, and education among several others. Each of these is followed by a description of what it entails in the form of subcategories. Under multi-year budgets, there are similar charts displaying information about budgets for various departments for the years 2007-2014. These charts are accompanied by brief summaries of how the intended budget compares with actual expenditures. Under budget classifications are four sources: a glossary of terms used in the charts, a glossary of other economic terms, a guide to the organization of the charts on the website, and a classification of expenditures. These sources provide information to guide viewers through the charts in the previous two sections in order to effectively communicate Cordoba’s budget information.
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The government of Cordoba Province has indicated a desire to be transparent by making an extensive amount of information available to the public via its website and providing sources such as glossaries of terms and guides on how the government has organized the information it presents. While these features are useful in communicating information, they must be presented in a clear, engaging manner in order to be effective. A democratic government’s obligation extends beyond publishing budgetary information. The elected leaders must communicate this information to all of their constituents. Once the importance of publishing budget information has been realized, the key to fostering engagement and involvement of the citizenry lies in the use of language and educational tools such as a timeline of the budgetary process and the agencies involved, which Cordoba’s website lacks. The government needs to provide well-rounded information, apart from simple statistics. Below is a chart displaying a list of features that are useful in creating transparency.
Budget content
Language
Features
Cordoba
Massachusetts
Current budget
Yes
Yes
Past budgets
Yes
Yes
Timeline of process
No
Yes
Description of process
No
Yes
Agencies involved
No
Yes
Clear, precise, comprehensible
No
Yes
Glossary of terms Translation for young citizens; educational tools for students/ teachers
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Other reforms to increase government transparency State websites are a powerful tool used to hold governments accountable and educate citizens in order to provide each member with a voice, increasing the validity of the label ‘democracy’. However, cultural and social factors, as well as increasing access to technology require incremental and demonstrated change. Therefore, we can turn to certain short-term actions, which could potentially lead to long-term increase in transparency and reduction in corruption.
General reforms 1. Develop criteria to measure ‘readiness’ for transparency. Since the process of transforming the relationship between a government and the citizenry is complex, it cannot be assumed that all countries are ready or able to engage in e-government initiatives at any given time. Thus, it is important to develop metrics against which one can gauge countries along certain criteria and measure readiness for government transparency. By doing so, the process becomes more efficient as particular initiatives and pilot programs can be targeted and promoted. It is possible that the implementation of certain given processes and focus on particular issues are good investments and lead to longer term projects and success across nations regardless of where nations fall on the readiness scale. On the other hand, it could be the case that the way
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in which nations increase transparency is dependent on their positions on the readiness scale. This is an area that requires additional research. 2. Develop verifiable measures of transparency. In this evaluation and analysis, it is evident that the term transparency is used with great liberty, with loose evaluation criteria and methods by which to determine the extensiveness and success of transparency efforts. While there exist several descriptive case studies that document transparency initiatives, such as this one, there is a lack of external, verifiable assessments. 3. Evaluate and implement existing systems and institutions. Successful initiatives to increase transparency, such as educational information on the Massachusetts website can be further studied. Additionally, one can study work done by organizations such as National Priorities, discussed later. 4. Produce and finance collaborative pilot projects. Budding projects and technologies can serve as fertile test beds and used to create new, informed strategies to increase transparency. Governments can fund non-government organizations (NGOs) to conduct research on transparency issues and provide ICTs or other means by which to engage the citizenry. Thus through a partnership, the government can reduce its risk in a controlled manner in its involvement in pilot projects and work in tandem with a group of its constituents to develop solutions that can be scaled and implemented to meet strategic objectives. These methods offer potential short-term gains and the achievement of longer-term strategic objectives.
Pilot project: National Priorities The National Priorities Project (NPP) is a unique agency based in Massachusetts, which translates complex federal budget information into simpler terms. NPP aims to make it accessible to the citizenry so that people may exercise their right and responsibility to oversee and influence the spending of tax dollars. It believes it has a duty to remove the barriers that have distanced citizens from the personal and societal impacts of federal spending. It plays the crucial role of increasing citizen participation in creating the federal budget and holding elected officials entirely accountable to their constituents so that the US may have a healthy and robust democracy. NPP provides clear budget information on the web (nationalpriorities.org), utilizing colorful graphics and interactive features. Thus, this information is available to individuals, community organizations, policy makers, and the media. It revitalizes democracy by taking the following actions: Periodically releasing budget reports that summarize federal revenues and expenditures at the national, state, and local levels in simple terms. Providing essential information regarding the national budget and the process via seminars and participatory workshops online in order to build the capacity of constituents; and Maintaining an exceptional database that allows people to assess the personal and societal impact of federal revenue generation and spending. The interactive features on the NPP website are particularly engaging. Through one feature, for example, individuals can understand the tradeoffs made in budgeting by inputting the name of a city and a program such as energy conservation or unemployment compensation. Then NPP provides the following information: the number of tax dollars spent by the city in the said program as well as a list of ways in which the same amount of money could be spent in other
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programs. Thus, citizens can understand the opportunity costs of the current budget plan and can actively participate in the budget process and influence elected officials by offering an informed opinion. Other interactive features allow citizens to understand the effect of tax cuts and finding which programs each tax dollar of an individual’s was spent by the federal government. The adoption of a similar program in the province of Cordoba would alleviate much of the ambiguity and opacity that currently exists. Home to the second largest city in Argentina, which alone houses about 200,000 university students, and a center for tourism, Cordoba province, in particular, has great potential to improve its relationship with and engage its citizens for a robust economy and healthy democracy. Author
Noor Sethi is student of Smith College (Massachusetts) in the Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Mathematics. Noor has experience at working with NGOs in China and MĂŠxico. College
Smith College is a liberal-arts college in Massachusetts. It was built in the late 1800s with the intent of providing women with the same educational opportunities as men, quite a radical decision at the time. For over a century, Smith has remained a single-sex school in order to maximize ambition and confidence for its students. Apart from academics, it places particular emphasis on issues of social justice, diversity, and leadership through classes, workshops, and internship opportunities. Smith sees itself as a member of the global community and strives to create a relationship between a college education and the larger public issues of world order and human rights, etc, particularly with regard to the rights and privileges of women. References 1. Bertot, John C., Paul T. Jaeger, and Justin M. Grimes. "Using ICTs to Create a Culture of Transparency: E-government and Social Media as Openness and Anti-corruption Tools for Society." Government Information Quarterly (2010): 264-71. Print. 2. Relly, Jeannine E., and Meghna Sabharwal. "Perceptions of Transparency of Government Policymaking: A Cross-national Study." Government Information Quarterly 26 (2009): 14857. Print.
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