Government-by-Government Assessments: Uzbekistan
During the review period, the government made significant progress by publishing audits that covered the entire annual executed budget and contained substantive findings and recommendations. The government made its executive budget proposal, enacted budget, and end-of-year report widely and easily accessible to the general public, including online. However, information on debt obligations, including contingent and state-owned enterprise debt, was not publicly available. Publicly available budget documents provided a substantially complete picture of the government’s planned expenditures and revenue streams. Budget documents did not include detailed information on expenditures by ministry or information on allocations to or earnings from state-owned enterprises. Detailed information on natural resource revenues and the government’s off-budget accounts was not publicly available. The budget did not include information on expenditures to support executive offices. It is not possible to assess the reliability of the budget due to the lack of publicly available information. The supreme audit institution meets international standards of independence. The criteria and procedures by which the national government awards natural resource extraction contracts or licenses were not specified in law, regulation, or other public documents, preventing review of whether the government followed applicable laws and regulations in practice. Basic information on natural resource extraction awards was not always publicly available. Uzbekistan’s fiscal transparency would be improved by:
- making information on debt obligations, including contingent and state-owned enterprise debt, publicly available;
- including detailed information on expenditures by ministry as well as information on allocations to and earnings from state-owned enterprises in budget documents;
- ensuring budget documents are reliable;
- fully outlining the criteria and procedures for allocating natural resource extraction licenses and contracts in law or regulation and following them in practice; and
- making basic information about such awards publicly available.