The approved budget for all the institutions, including defence and intelligence, is published by the MoF, but in the same aggregated form with the budget allocated per programs. The draft medium-term budget is also published for two years ahead by the MoF [1, 2, 3].

The approved defence budget, aggregated in programs, is published by the MoF as soon as it gets adopted by the parliament. The budget is made publically available on the MoF website after it is adopted [1]. Under the requirement to report spending to the MoD produced monitoring reports on the implementation of the budget [2, 3]. The reports provide information on the spending for each program, and within the programs, there is even a more detailed break down of the figures. Similar reporting is prepared for the military spending following the Vienna Document to which Albania is a party to [4]. However, this budget information is provided to the public after it is spent (one year after) and in an aggregated form [2, 3, 4].

No disaggregated budget is made public. There is no evidence of a published defence budget over the last few years. Open Data Albania, which collects and publishes the financial data from all the spending entities has not received a disaggregated version of the defence budget [1]. The media and civil society organisations can access published documents; but requests for more detailed information are not acted upon, as in the case of the request made for this assessment [2].

The government proactively publishes the finance law including an aggregated figure for the defence budget at the beginning of a fiscal year (1), (2), (3). In the months before, the Council of Ministers adopts the finance law and there are media reports on the aggregated figure of the defence budget (4), (5).

No information could be found during the research on how the defence budget breaks down. The finance laws do not provide any information on specific areas of defence spending (1) (2) (3). No additional information could be found, for example, on the Ministry of Defence website (4). As mentioned in 14A, media reports also just cover the aggregated figure as do international organizations, such as SIPRI (5).

Given the scare information on the defence budget as outlined in 14A and 14B, it seems very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain any further information on the defence budget. Journalists have lamented that they have difficulties accessing official information on security issues (1). Also, the Law of Information of 2012 (Art. 84) restricts the right of access to information, which is usually granted to journalists, but restricted concerning national defence secrecy (2).

The approved state budget that includes the defence budget and supporting documents are published on the Ministry of Finance’s website, in a summarized and aggregated form (1).

The Finance Ministry publishes the draft and final state budget. Though not comprehensive, the documents provide information in an aggregated form on different types of expenditure for the different branches of the military and the police (1). However, the defence and security budget regularly includes unspecified items with only summary expenditure information.

Notably, the state budgets from 2014-2018 all include unexplained budget items of “non-specified services” in the section of defence and security and public order (1), (2), (3), (4).

The summary defence budget section has also included the unexplained budget item of “Civil Defence” (Defesa Civil). The Organization of Civil Defence was created as a ruling party paramilitary structure during the civil war. Supposedly it has been disarmed since, yet it has shown up as a defence budget item (such as in the 2015 state budget), to be later replaced by the budget item “Protection and Security” (4).

Information requests by opposition parties during the parliamentary budget process on defence and security sector expenses have rarely been met with timely answers if any (1).

For instance, in January 2018, the head of the President’s Security Bureau and Minister of State, Pedro Sebastião, responded to questions from the opposition that in the defence budget for 2018 that 81% of the defence budget was earmarked for salaries (without providing any more detail). He also responded to questions from the opposition party UNITA over the alleged involvement of 5,000 President’s Security Bureau employees in acts of political violence in Cuando Cubango, that those military were not staff of the President’s Security Office, but former military integrated into the Office during past peace processes (2).

In November 2015, the Secretary of State of the Finance Minister, Alcides Safeca, explained in response to opposition party questions that the non-specified expenditures for defence and security were linked to infrastructure projects that for strategic reasons remained secret (3), (4).

The approved defence budget is broken down and made available to the public from 2017 through the “Open Budget” website, as well as in the National Budget Office of the Ministry of Finance. Civil society has access to these data and ASAP prepares the Budgetary Observatory based on these data. The media therefore also access this information and based on this they carry out analyses and assessments of different kinds. Thus, with respect to the defence budget in particular, it is illustrated in relation to its amount, its division by object, its evolution, among others.

The vast majority of the approved defence budget is disclosed in full through official internet channels. This budget is the one that covers the entire national administration and can be broken by jurisdiction, by object, by year, etc. as well as what is budgeted and executed. It is publicly accessible. The Citizens Budget also works more interactively, showing expenses by sector and the amounts and percentages. In relation to defence, there are exceptions. For example, Decree 125/2018 allows for secret contractual operations for the acquisition of war material. [1] [2] [3]

Following the Law on Access to Public Information, approved in 2016 and regulated in March 2017, mechanisms for both Active Transparency and information request are established. The latter allows a mechanism for access to information that is not provided by the exposed means. As of 2017, several state agencies added the transparency seal to their official websites. There is the possibility of contacting the internal transparency body via mail or telephone in order to request information. According to the information provided by the General Directorate of Integrity, Transparency, and Institutional Strengthening of the Ministry of Defence, as of June 2019, 313 requests for information have been received since 2017 from several provinces and regarding different issues. [1] In turn, as mentioned above, the open budget page is detailed and allows access to disaggregated data concerning what is spent, how, and by whom. Notwithstanding the foregoing, when resorting to requests for access to public information, these usually take longer than established to be attended to or do not receive a complete response, which can be seen in the claims that are registered on the Agency’s website of Access to Public Information, [2] where some claims are observed related to the Ministry of Defence or Armed Forces. [3] In this sense, the organisation Power of Citizens in some of its reports discusses the obstacles of some State agencies to provide information, which in some cases has led to judicialisation. [4] Likewise, in reference to active transparency, according to the “infometer” carried out by “Checked,” the Ministry of Defence is behind most other ministries with regard to transparency and available information. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

The defence budget makes an integral part of the general budget and undergoes the same procedure as the general budget. Once the budget is approved by the parliament, it is published on the government’s and National Assembly’s websites. Anyone interested may find general defence budget items, without any specification [1, 2]. Then, once the budget is published, the media may also address its structure with general figures [3]. On the website of the Ministry of Health, the main areas of the state budget expenditures on healthcare are available as opposed to the website of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) [4].

Though the majority of defence budget items are not disclosed to the public, there are mechanisms provided by law to oversee the spending. Thus, the Rule of Procedure of the Parliament authorizes the designated Standing Committees, and the parliament in general, to request clarifications and details on the defence budget. The MoD and the government have to provide the requested information within a reasonable period (Chapter 20 of the Rule of Procedure) [1].

The only source for this sub-question is a brief explanation by the Interviewee 5 who submitted a request for quarterly budget implementation and got rejected by the MoD that justifies the rejection through the close of confidentiality [1]. There is no other evidence through media outlets that the requests were not fulfilled.

The approved defence budget is fully published in the formal Appropriations Bills, while specific expenditures are explained and contested during Parliamentary debate, disaggregated and expanded upon for experts in the Budget Papers, and summarised by government on the Budget.gov.au website and speech and in Ministerial statements. Passing the Appropriations Bills are the final step in the annual budget process, which set out the level of actual funding provided to entities and programs in government, generally as proposed in Portfolio Budget Statements [1, 2]. These provide a full accounting of the approved defence budget, except for the occasional line marked “nfp” or not for publication for national security or commercial-in-confidence reasons [2, pvi], though not at a level of granularity offered by, for instance, the US Department of Defence in the Budget Materials [3]. The Appropriations Bills are introduced on Budget night, during which time the government also releases the four Budget Papers, explanatory documents for experts which provide context to the proposed spending increases [4]. The Budget.gov.au website [5] is also updated with relevant information on Budget night, and the Budget Speech [6] is delivered and released, providing general but politicised information about the proposed budget. For Defence specifically, the Minister of Defence and Minister of Defence Industry release a statement providing a general overview and highlighting specific proposed spending [7]. Because of the way the budget process works in Australia, the Budget as presented on Budget night is the same Budget that is ultimately approved, with perhaps very minor adjustments (see Q13B).

The vast majority of the Defence portfolio budget does appear to be released publicly, though not in much detail, through the measures mentioned in Q14A – though some small amounts of secret expenditure do exist – and Parliamentary oversight is present, though lacks the authority to provide effective scrutiny over secret items. The level of detail in the Defence portfolio budget is limited (see Q14A) and, due to the way figures are presented, its fiscal implications are obscure, meaning external experts must expend significant effort to understand the budget (most notably in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s annual Cost of Defence reports [1]). Secret expenditure, as indicated by a “nfp,” or not for publication, line in the Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS) [2, p20] the Appropriations Bills are based on [3], does not appear to form a large proportion of the overall Budget (see Q26). However, external oversight of the limited number of secret items in the budget appears weak. While the Australian National Audit Office has the formal authority to investigate secret items, it focuses resources on a limited number of performance audits and financial statement audits [4], a format which does not lend itself to continuous oversight of secret budget proposals. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and its constituent Defence Sub Committee does not have access to classified information, unlike the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, hampering its ability to oversee secret Defence spending [5]. This secret approved spending included, in the most recent Budget cycle, the budget for Operation Augury in the Philippines, which was later publicly revealed in the Defence PBS [2]. Parliament was not able to scrutinise this spending, as it was also not privy to the budget figures. The ability of Parliament or another oversight body to scrutinise this spending in an unrestricted manner is clearly relevant for effective oversight. The relevant Senate committees get a chance to ask questions about all spending, including secret spending, during the thrice-yearly Senate Estimates process. However, they are usually rebuffed by senior officials under questioning, who cite classification (see Q2A).

Concerning freedom of information generally, the Australian government has been accused by media, civil society, and even politicians of being reluctant to make documents publicly available without a specific request; and to make the formal process to obtain documents unnecessarily long, expensive, and subject to high refusal rates and redaction (see Q30C) – and this is no different for information requests related to major budget items. Over two years, Senator for South Australia Rex Patrick was repeatedly refused access to documents related to the $50 billion Future Submarines Project before the Information Commissioner ultimately ordered Defence to hand over the documents, leading him to accuse Defence of having a “‘modus operandi’… to delay FOI requests until the information became stale and irrelevant” [1]. A Freedom of Information request by the ABC for documents related to a secret Projects of Concern list, covering distressed Defence procurements worth billions of dollars collectively, was relatively quickly granted, though nearly half of the pages provided were completely redacted and most of the other pages were at least partially redacted [2].

The state budget is approved by the president after the adoption by parliament and then published in the state media (1). However, the budget is highly aggregated and lacks detail, such that it is difficult for non-experts to read (2).

There are some additional sources of information on the defence budget that can be found. For example, the Ministry of Finance publishes a report analysing sections of the state budget in detail. Further details can also be found in the annual report of the Chamber of Accounts – for instance, how much money was spent among military institutions (MoD, Defence Industry Ministry and others. There are also some lines in the state budget, such as “funding for research in the defence sector”, for which the Chamber of Accounts report gives full details of which institution used this funding (3).

The defence budget is primarily defined under the name of “General Defence Expenses”, followed by “Defence Forces” (including the Defence Ministry), “National Security” (State Border Service, State Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service) “Defence and Security Studies” (Ministry of Defence and Defence Industry) and “Non-Other Expenditures” (mostly Ministry of Defence Industry) (1). In other sections, for example, the “Science” section also provides funds for the Ministry of Defence Industry. Internal Troops, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and other law enforcement agencies are included in the section “Judicial Power, Law Enforcement and Prosecution” (2). Most areas of the approved budget are not publicly available. There is no detailed information in the defence budget. According to experts, this also complicates public oversight of the defence budget. Each year the Ministry of Finance publishes a report analysing the sections of the state budget in detail.

In Azerbaijan it is extremely difficult or impossible to get any information on the military budget. Azerbaijan has spent billions of dollars on weapons in recent years. It is not possible to obtain any detailed information on how much of the budget is spent on it (1). According to experts, along with the parliament, the Defence Ministry and other military structures refuse to extend any information about military spending (2).

If Azerbaijani journalists want to get more detailed information about the defence budget, they will fail in their pursuit. The Defence Ministry and other military structures will not provide any details. The reason for this, the MoD says, is the Azerbaijani – Armenian conflict and the attempts to protect military secrets (3). Thus, in practice civil society and the media cannot obtain detailed information on the defence budget (5).

Based on interviews with a local journalist and a CSO member, as well as online searches and the reports of the budget, there is no data available on the general defence budget, either detailed or in sum [1, 2].

This indicator is marked ‘Not Applicable’, as there is no data available publicly on the defence budget [1, 2].

This indicator is marked ‘Not Applicable’, as there is no data available publicly on the defence budget [1, 2].

The approved defence budget with a nearly complete breakdown is available on the website of the Ministry of Finance [1]. Some consolidated information is also available in the annual reports of the Ministry of Defence [2]. Interested citizens, CSOs and the media can obtain this information freely.

The approved defence budget with a nearly complete breakdown is available on the website of the Ministry of Finance [1]. Some consolidated information is also available in the annual reports of the Ministry of Defence [2]. Interested citizens, CSOs and the media can obtain this information freely. Under the guidance of the Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh, the Defence Audit Directorate (DAD) conducts an annual audit of all offices under the Ministry of Defence, including all units and formations under the Bangladesh Army, Navy and Air Force [3].

According to the 2019 Annual Report of the Information Commission (IC), the Ministry of Defence received a total of 121 applications for information in the prescribed format, all of which were disposed of. However, there is no breakdown detailing the nature of information sought or the identity of the information seeker. The IC Annual Report also mentions that the Ministry of Defence realised some Taka 450,000 in photocopying charges from the applicants seeking that information during the given period [1].

The budget is publicy available on the website of the Federal Public Service Policy and Support [1]. It is subdivided into categories to large detail, a detailed breakdown of defence expenditures, including figures for personnel (salaries and allowances), military R&D, training, construction, administrative expenses, procurement and acquisitions, disposal of assets and maintenance.

Within these categories, detailed line-item descriptions can be found [2]. Non-expert language is not included, yet information on how to read the budget report is provided by the FPS Policy and Support [3]. Additionally, the public can easily find non-expert information on defence budget in news media [4].

The vast majority of the approved defence budget is fully discosed to the public [1]. An exception is related to the intelligence expenditure (the Belgian military intelligence service ADIV, ‘Algemene Dienst Inlichtingen en Veiligheid’), as well as the details of each procuremnt file (sensitive or not). These two cases are overseen by Committee I (Belgian Standing Intelligence Agencies Review Committee) and the Interfederal Corps of the Inspectorate of Finance, respectively [2, 3].

The Law on Freedom of Information states that all citizens have the right to request access to state documents [1]. Article 6 refers to cases in which this request may be denied. Some of these exemptions may be relevant for the defence budget, such as ‘the interests of safety and defence of the country’ (paragraph 1) or the classification level of the document (paragraph 2).

Article 6 also states that responses to citizens must be send out within 30 days of their requests, which is a timely fashion. Article 8 states that, if the request is denied, the citizen can contact the Commission for access to governing documents to appeal this decision.

The Defence Budget’s in 2018 and 2017 were adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina and it presents an integral part of the Law on Budget of the Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and International Obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina for 2018 (and 2017). The budget itself is proactively published in a disaggregated form and can be accessed on the website of the Ministry of Finance and Treasury of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Part of the Budget titled Revenue Expenditure Schedule shows exact current and capital expenditures. Under current expenditures the general form of the expenditures allocated to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is visible, but it is not disaggregated enough to provide sufficient information explaining the precise purpose of the budget item [1, 2].

The approved Defence Budget of Bosnia and Herzegovina is fully disclosed to the public but, it is not fully but it is not enough disaggregated to provide sufficient information explaining the precise purpose of the budget item. Consequently, there is a committee on Finance and Budget of the House of Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina considers issues pertaining to:
– the BiH Central Bank; banking business, with the exception of banking policy; external debt; financing of BiH Institutions;
– functioning of financial institutions at the BiH level;
– regulations in the field of finance and budget considerations;
– fiscal and credit policy;
– execution and control of execution of the budget of BiH;
– consideration of decisions on debt accumulation, debt re-programming and other liabilities of BiH;
– reports of the Office for Auditing the Institutions of BiH;
– monitoring of the realization of recommendations in audit reports on the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH and, in co-operation with the Joint Committee on Administrative Affairs, application of necessary measures to remove shortcomings stipulated in the audit report; the Committee responsibilities determined by the Law on Auditing of the BiH Institutions;
– and, inter-parliamentary co-operation with the corresponding committees in parliaments of other countries [1].

As it derives from the Report on Work of the Committee on Finance and Budget of the House of Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina for 2016, the committee considered the audit reports on financial operations of Ministry of Defence for 2015 and the Information from the Audit Office and the memos of six institutions (including the MoD) whose business was evaluated by the auditor’s evaluation mark “reserve-based opinion” and ” reserve-based opinion with an emphasis on the subject ” to oversee the recommendations of the Audit Office and the conclusions of the Finance Commission and the budget, adopted by the House of Representative after auditing the financial business of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina for 2014 [2].

Following Article 4 of the Law on Freedom of Access to Information, every natural and legal person has the right to access information in the control of a public authority and each public authority has a corresponding obligation to disclose such information [1]. Consequently, there are some exemptions in Article 6 (Exemptions for Functions of Public Authorities) where a competent authority may claim an exemption where disclosure would reasonably be expected to cause substantial harm to the legitimate aim of the following in Bosnia and Herzegovina:
(a) the foreign policy, defence and security interests, and the protection of public safety;
(b) the monetary policy interests;
(c) crime prevention and any preliminary criminal investigation; and
(d) the protection of the deliberative process of a public authority insofar as it involves the expressing of opinion, advice or recommendation by a public authority, employee thereof, or any person acting for or on behalf of a public authority and does not involve factual, statistical, scientific, or technical information [1].

There is some information published in a media outlet (online newspaper) stating that more than half of the institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina do not respect the Law on Freedom of Access to Information [2]. The analysis of the Center for Media Development and Analysis from 2017 claims that almost half of all requests for the FOI remained unanswered [3].

In the experience of the researcher, budgetary information relating to procurement is generally provided by the MoD through information requests. As the budget is publicly available, with 2/3 itemized for the salaries, it is unusual for other organisations/researchers to look into budgetary issues that are not related to procurement (especially high value procurements), and therefore there is little information regarding response to information requests on those issues.

The approved budget is made public with some explanations, although, the explanations are not detailed enough for more detailed scrutiny [1]. However, the explanations at least make the public understand or at least appreciate how the Defence Budget will be generally used [2]. There is still room for more information on the Expenditure side to encourage transparency and accountability of the defence to the public and other interested stakeholders [3]. In some instances, the budget is broken into different components for presentation in Parliament.

The approved budget is published as aggregated with reasonable information which may not be detailed enough in most cases [1]. The published budget is available both to the public and CSOs. As explained earlier, the NGOs in Botswana are not active in Defence and Security matters. This is supported by the lack of any publications by the NGOs under the banner of BOCONGO. For example, in the 2019/2020 Recurrent Budget Speech on Defence and Security, it has been reported that: Minister of Defence Justice and Security, Shaw Kgathi, has proposed a recurrent budget of 6 billion eight hundred and fifty-eight million eight hundred and sixty thousand nine hundred and twenty pula and a development budget of two billion four hundred and ninety-nine million seven hundred and ninety-two thousand three hundred and eighty-eight pula for his Ministry in the 2019/20 financial year [2]. Presenting his proposal in Parliament yesterday Kgathi said that the money will go towards ministry headquarters, the Dukwi refugee camp, the Botswana police service, the BDF, the department of prisons, legal aid Botswana and the office of the receiver as well as the budgetary needs of the structures occasioned by the adoption of the anti-money laundering and financing of terrorism-related acts under his ministry [2]. He said of priority is the salary and conditions of service for the members of the Botswana defence force. He added that the recommendations of the Tsa Bahiri Consultancy, which was appointed to undertake a holistic review of the conditions of service and pay structure of the BDF members, were approved by the cabinet in 2016 [2].

There is not enough information on response to information requests to score this indicator. The formal mechanisms to request information are available to the media, the public and the NGOs [1]. However, there is no evidence that these formal requests have been tested [1]. Further, there are no media reports to the effect that they have requested information from the Defence as far as the budget is concerned and that such request has been denied [2]. This can also be attributed to the fact that Botswana does not have a wide spectrum of independent media and investigative journalism [2]. This is supported by Konopo who recently stated: “As director of Botswana’s only independent investigative journalism unit, and a former newspaper editor, I have seen first-hand how the narrative offered by journalists in Botswana is all too often directly influenced by politicians; and how the close the relationship between politicians and journalists leaves the media too weak to hold the powerful to account” [2].

The legislative process surrounding the annual budget is well documented on the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate’s websites [1] [2], but in a fashion that makes it difficult to distinguish what is the Defence Budget. The Ministry of Finance also publicizes the draft and enacted budget bills with a relatively good disaggregation [3]. The documents discriminate budget provisions according to projects, type, responsible unit, and function [4, 5]. The Senate provides aggregated data regarding past Defence Budgets and the current state of its execution or contingency [6]. There is also some (but superficial) budgetary information on the Ministry of Defence’s website [7].

According to one military interviewee, most secret parts are contained within specific contracts, that may restrict access to specifics and quantities of the products or services contracted by the government [1]. Through analyzing the level of data aggregation, it is possible that a well-documented project or administrative procedure can have secret parts. The documents discriminate budget provisions according to projects, type, responsible unit, and function [2, 3]. It is relatively easy to understand what the resources are directed for, but not all of them – and especially the administrative ones.

Brazil’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) works relatively well in the federal government, even for sensitive requests, the Ministry of Defence shows good and timely response rates. The statistics provided by the FOIA platform ‘e-sic’ show that 100% of the requests received by the Ministry in 2019 were answered on time [1]. An NGO called ‘Fiquem sabendo’ asked for an extensive list of declassified documents, 401 documents, and only one was denied. The Navy, in turn, denied access to sixteen-thousand declassified documents [2]. The assessor sent an information request on 29 November 2019 to the Ministry of Defence, asking for budgetary disaggregated data, and the answer was complete and instructive [3]. One of the reviewers highlighted that timeliness does not always translate into quality in the responses, and often his or her requests were subject to time extensions (which is foreseen by the Brazilian FOIA).

The core issue with the defence budget is the fact that it is not often not released in a disaggregated form (1), (2), (3), (4), (5).

The defence budget is published annually along with the budgets of all other state institutions. The 2019 approved budget was published online and signed by the National Assembly on December 18, 2018 (2), (3). The approved defence budget is included in the state budget. For example, the 2019 defence budget and examination state the following:

“The State budget, financial year 2019, amounts to CFAF 2 213 290 331 000 in anticipation of expenditure and CFAF 1,954,564,429,000 in anticipation of revenue. In view of the difficult security situation in Burkina Faso, the shares granted to the defence and security have increased significantly. From now on, the budget of the Ministry of national defence and veterans passes from 169 936 320 000 F CFA in 2018 to 209 726,310,000 F CFA in 2019, an increase of 23.41%. For the security department, we fell from CFAF 71 644 839 000 in 2018 to CFAF 99 577 834 000 in 2019, an increase of 38.99%. According to Hadizatou Rosine Coulibaly / Sori, Minister of Economy, Finance and development, this increase is justified by the security situation” (4).

According to the World Bank Open Budget Portal (2005-2015), “Burkina Faso is the sixth francophone country in Africa to release budget and expenditure data to the public using BOOST. The Burkina Faso BOOST database provides disaggregated budget data of the central government from 2005 to 2015. The Burkina Faso BOOST database includes allocated, modified, committed, validated, ordered to pay and paid figures by different agencies of the central government. The data is disaggregated by administrative, economic, functional, geographic, sectoral, project classifications and also presents information on sources of funding.” “Data is available from 2005 to 2015, Data contains administrative, economic, functional, geographic, sectoral, project and source of funding classifications and Data presents six different stages of the budget cycle” (1).

The defence budget does not show the break down of the core components; it just presents the expenditures and the resources to mobilize to take care of these expenditures (1). According to SIPRI (2018), “military expenditures are expressed as a percentage of general government expenditures, and are for calendar years”. SIPRI goes further by explaining that Burkina Faso’s military expenditures represented respectively 6.1% of the government expenditures in 2015, 5.1% in 2016 and 5.1% in 2017 (2).

The defence budget is published annually along with the budgets of all the other state institutions, and it is available online (1). However, the defence budget does not show the break down of the core components; it just presents the expenditures and the resources to mobilize to take care of these expenditures (2). According to SIPRI (2018), “military expenditures are expressed as a percentage of general government expenditures, and are for calendar years”. SIPRI goes further by explaining that Burkina Faso’s military expenditures represented respectively 6.1% of the government expenditures in 2015, 5.1% in 2016 and 5.1% in 2017 (3).

According to Article 111 of the Constitution, “the Parliament can address to the Government questions on current events, written questions, [or] oral questions with or without debate”, following the principle of the responsibility of the government before the Parliament (4). However, the media, CSOs and citizens will not have their questions answered concerning those items that are not included in the budget published online.

The budget is published in the National Gazette and on the website of the Presidency of the Republic, which is accessible to the public, after it is passed into law [1] [2]. This means it is not proactively published. The budget is provided in a highly aggregated form [2].

Most areas of the defence budget are not publicly available. While the approved budget is made available, it is published in a highly aggregated form [1]. The 2018 Budget Law includes only the following vague breakdown under the Ministry of Defence: Governance and Institutional Support in the Defence Subsector; Strengthening Territorial Defence; Participation in National Development Activities; and Participation in the Protection of Persons and Property, with aggregate budget figures provided for each section [1].

In addition, there is no evidence of oversight by other suitable authorities. According to the most recent Open Budget Survey (Jan 2018), Cameroon received a score of 22/100 on budget oversight, with the survey noting that “the legislature and supreme audit institution in Cameroon provide weak oversight of the budget” [2]. Also, Cameroon’s Constituiion (Article 35) states that the government does not have to provide information/explanations to the legislature regarding national defence/security of the state, in effect limiting any rights of scrutiny possessed by the legislature [3].

The Open Budget Survey has given Cameroon a score of 7/100 on budget transparency, noting that scant budget information is provided to the public [1]. Also, Cameroon’s constitution (Article 35) [2] and Procurement Code allow for a great deal of secrecy in regard to issues of defence and security. This, combined with the absence of any evidence of defence budget information being provided to the public, indicates that it is extremely difficult to obtain such information.

The national budget contains only very broad categories of information for defence spending. [1] The Departmental Plan contains more detailed spending about the defence budget, but information is aggregated at high levels or across functions (personnel, maintenance) making it difficult to discern where spending is going with any detail. [2] Planned costs for specific operations are available, but without disaggregation within each operation; most detailed information concerns how spending has changed from year to year, rather than where funds are going. [3] The most detailed accounting comes in the form of quarterly reports, which document after the fact how funds were used. [4]

The Departmental Plan is the closest publication to a defence budget that is widely available, and it does not contain granular detail. The decisions around what information to publish are not articulated. [1] Main Estimates, [2] and Supplementary Estimates [3] published by the Treasury Board Secretariate provide more frequent and detailed information on approved budgets, including for defence. The work of the Standing Committee indicates it has access to more granular and detailed defence budget information. [4] [5] [6] Areas related to defence published in the Budget 2021 have yet to be articulated in more detail. [7]

The Information Commissioner of Canada reports that the DND was the fourth most frequent agency named in complaints received about failure to provide information, and has been in the top five every year for the past five years. Moreover, it had the second highest number of complaints judged to be “with merit,” meaning the agency failed to apply access to information policies correctly. This suggests a lack of cooperation with the media or interested individuals at the high end for all government agencies, although it is not specific to budget-related requests. [1] Additionally, there are frequent complaints regarding to the timing and quality of responses to access to information requests to the DND, despite the best efforts and official policies / legislated timelines put in place by the department. [2] [3]

The Direccion de Presupuestos de Chile (DIPRES) publishes annual budgets for the Ministry of National Defence (MDN) and each of the branches of the armed forces and military institutions and services. The reports include the content of the budget by institutions and items, programmatic lines and investment and contents of the budget proposal, information of permanent expenditures, strategic definitions, and institutional commitments [1]. Budget executions for different bodies and institutions are disaggregated by months and items. Although this information is comprehensive, there are still several deficiencies [2]. First, there is no detailed information on acquisitions and investment of military equipment. Second, the budget associated with the Restricted Law of Copper, published only in 2016 (Ley Num. 20.977), is not published, for it is not considered in the General Accounts of the Nation [3, 4].

The vast majority of the approved defence budget that belongs to the Budget Law of the Public Sector is fully disclosed by the Budget Direction of the Ministry of Finance (DIPRES) and the MDN [1]. However, the budget that belongs to resources from the Restricted Law of Copper is not disclosed to citizens, civil society, and the media. The number of resources involved, as well as the discretion in the use of reserved funds has been a constant concern. Civil society organisations and congressmen have commented on the opportunities that these conditions create for wrongdoing and corruption [2, 3]. The oversight of the use and execution of these resources is performed by two external agents: the permanent Committee of Defence in the Chamber of Deputies, and the General Comptroller. However, even in these instances, informants observe limitation in the access to information considered of national security [4, 5]. There is also a severe deficit in preventive control and oversight. A former senior analyst in the General Comptroller’s Office, commented on the technical and staff limitations that the office face to oversight the defence budget in a comprehensive manner and the problems of accessing accurate information on time [6].

Information requested by citizens, media, and civil society concerning the defence budget, expenditures, and acquisitions is guaranteed by the Law of Access to Public Information [1]. This law provides a legal framework with procedures and channels to request information to agencies in the public sector, including the MDN, its sub-secretaries, and the branches of the Armed Forces. However, the examination of patterns of response suggests the existence of several shortcomings in practice. Considering the indexes of acts and documents classified as secret or reserved, a significant part of requests are denied, either fully or partially, because they somehow relate to sensitive information on national security. There is a complex arrangement of legal provisions for the withdrawal of information, data, and documents. In Article 21, the Law of Access to Public Information establishes that information can be denied if its publicity might affect the security of the nation, specifically if it concerns national defence; and if documents, data or information are considered reserved by a law of qualified quorum (for instance, the Organic Law of the Armed Forces [2]). Several analysts and observers have commented on the broad interpretation commonly assigned to the precept of “national security” [3]. (Information requested by this analyst has been denied two times for national security reasons). In addition, information of budget relative to resources of the Law of Copper is considered “restricted”, and therefore the resources in this found, transferences made to the branches of the armed forces, instruments of investment and revenues are restricted (Law 13.396, modified by the Laws 18.445 and 18.628) [3, 4]. Finally, the Code of Military Justice, in Article 436, enumerates a set of “secret documents” that are “directly related with the security of the State, the National Defence, and the public order”, among them information relative to human resources and personnel in the armed and security forces, and all sorts of military provisions and equipment in these bodies [5].

The defence budget is not proactively published. It becomes available to the public once officially approved by China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress. The information provided is highly aggregated while the justification of annual increases is superficial. [1,2,3,4,5]

The Ministry of Defence announces China’s defence budget, which is then further circulated on Chinese media, but this budget only contains the total amount and three aggregated areas of expenditure: personnel, training and maintenance, and equipment. [1,2,4] A particular area of concern is military R&D which is often conducted by state-owned enterprises and it is not included in the budget. [3]

It is not possible for citizens, civil society or the media to obtain information on the military budget other than that provided by the authorities. Although access-to-information regulations exist, these do not cover the defence budget. [1] The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Guarding State Secrets broadly covers all “secrets in the building of national defence and in the activities of the armed forces” (Article 8) providing no exceptions. As such, the type and comprehensiveness of available information depends entirely on the discretion of the CCP. According to the Open Budget Survey: “China provides the public with scant budget information.” The OBS provides a score of 13/100 on China’s budget transparency. [2] Also Cheung notes that “little, if any, independent investigative reporting takes place” [3] in relation to the PLA, as the government maintains enhanced secrecy over all defence matters.

The General Budget of the Nation is disclosed to the public through the website of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit. For the defence sector, this is presented in a disaggregated way into seven sectoral strategies: territorial control, pension liabilities, acquisitions of goods and services, health, logistical support, other functioning, and defence policy and police; and provides superficial explanation of the budget. [1, 2] Likewise, the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit details the totals for each sector that is part of the Ministry; the military logistics agency, police pay box, inclusive rehabilitation centre, civil defence, police fund, National Navy, Army, Air Force, and the National Police, among other sectors. [2] For its part, the Ministry of Defence publishes a general presentation of the budget, which relates the total operating and investment amounts of the entire defence sector, the central sector, and the decentralized sector. [3] This explanation of the budget is superficial, obscuring the budget distribution.

It is evident that, although there is a transparency law in Colombia that seeks to regulate the right of access to public information, there is a series of information that is reserved from public view. Article 6 of Law 1712 of 2014, [1] defines this type of information as “one that, while in possession or custody of a subject bound in his capacity, is exempted from access to citizenship for harm to public interests.” It is understood that some issues of defence and national security and public security are part of this information group. Law 1097 of 2006 [2] states that information and expenses related to the financing of intelligence activities, counterintelligence, criminal investigation, protection of witnesses and informants will be of a reserved nature, stipulating a series of articles defining the political, technical, budgetary, and legal scope of this information and expenses. Law 1219 of 2008 establishes the contracting regime from reserved expenses. [3] Therefore, although areas of the defence budget related to expenditure are not published in detail, there is a legal framework that regulates the type and items of publication. In 2019, the defence budget presents reserved expenditures in the strategy of acquisition of goods and services specifically in relation to public force operations, but information is presented in a general manner without a breakdown. [4] With regard to the supervision of other supervisory authorities on the budget and expenditures reserved, the Comptroller General of the Nation has a group that conducts fiscal control over the reserved expenditures and auditors who depend directly on the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (Law 1097 of 2006). [5] The Attorney General’s Office may also conduct investigations into the administrative responsibility of the officials of the executive, the Military Forces and the Police regarding the management of the budget allocated for reserved expenses. Although Colombia has these control authorities, there are acts of corruption within the Military Forces and Police related to money generated within the reserved expenses.

The Law of Transparency and Access to Public Information stipulates the right of every person to request and receive information from public entities. The Constitution of Colombia also enshrines in the right to submit petitions to the authorities and obtain prompt response, in a working time of 15 days, in Article 23. [1] The information can be delivered orally, in writing or via email, and in addition the information must be free or subject to a cost that does not exceed the value of the reproduction, and sent to the applicant. However, requests for reserved information can be denied for national security reasons, such as defence and national security, and public security issues. Where such a refusal arises, the applicant may bring an appeal. The appeal can be refused in the administrative court in whole or in part. [2] Given these difficulties, it can be argued that Colombian law seeks to deny public information in such instances. Although there is evidence of legislation and institutions that give citizens the right to obtain information about budgetary issues, it is not possible to determine if evidence is delivered on a regular and effective basis to those who request it.

Although scarcely distributed, the budget is available via the Journal Officiel publications. according to an interview with an MP, it is a fact that the information available online does not provide sufficient details as to the various fields of expenditure of the MoD.

The full text of LPM 2016-2020 is not available online via open sources. The LPM, which consists of 20 articles outlining the government’s defence policy through 2020, was adopted by the NA on January 11, 2016, and should, in theory, be published and accessible to the public. According to secondary sources, the annual texts implementing the LPM budgetary guidelines are published separately (1).

According to a 2016 study published by Brussels-based Groupe de Recherche et d’Information sur la Paix et la Sécurité (GRIPS), the LPM does not provide budgetary guidelines for expenditure related to national security (Police, Customs, etc.). This is regulated by a separate law (Loi de Programmation de Sécurité Intérieure, LPSI). (2) The LPSI, published in the official journal on March 17, 2016, is available through open sources online (3).

The draft Budget Law for 2018, published in October 2017 and available online, provides highly aggregated allocations for defence and security, and it is published online and accessible to citizens. Table 5 (p. 17) shows the key spending elements: Defence & security: 516.8 billion FCFA, of which 252.8 billion FCFA is projected for the Armed Forces (services des armées), 174.3 billion FCFA allocated to the police forces and 79.3 billion FCFA to the Gendarmerie Nationale. It also indicates projected expenditure for fuel destined to the Armed Forces (CFA 13.8 billion), the operational costs at the Conseil National de Sécurité (CNS) (10 billion FCFA) and a global figure of 617.9 billion FCFA across other functions (4). The draft Budget Law for 2018 also mentions the budgetary guidelines of LPM 2016-2020 (p. 14). “In addition, the draft budget 2018 takes into account other priority investments of the Government, in particular under the Domestic Security Programming Law (5.8 billion), the Military Programming Law (30 billion FCFA)…” (4).

Although scarcely distributed, the budget is available via the Journal Officiel publications, but the information available online does not provide sufficient details as to the various fields of expenditure of the MoD. The draft Budget 2018 (projet de Loi de Finances) related to defence and security is highly aggregated.

Details of budgetary allocations in the LPM 2016-2020 are difficult or outright impossible to obtain. However, aggregate data is made available, which results in insufficient information for media and the public (1). Ivoirian media have reported on the LPM 2016-2020 by relaying the total aggregate figure of 2.254 billion FCFA for planned defence expenditure released by the government (2). The fact that different media sources have released the same aggregate figure suggests that reporters, civil society and citizens do not have access to a detailed breakdown of the defence budget, either via the LPM or its implementing laws.

As a part of the Finance Act, the defence budget is made publicly available online and in print [1]. As noted in Q12, it contains comprehensive and disaggregated information on expenditure across all functions. Comments (“anmærkninger”) to the functions’ individual accounts and subaccounts are comprehensive and contains details on posts, purpose and the like. The website of the Ministry of Defence contains more easily comprehensible descriptions and information on the budget [2].

As noted in Q12 and Q14A, the defence budget is fully disclosed and contains comprehensive and disaggregated information on expenditure across all functions. Comments (“anmærkninger”) to the functions’ individual accounts and subaccounts are comprehensive and contains details on posts, purpose and the like [1]. Appropriations for the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste, DIIS) are also publicly available on the Finance Act, however details regarding DIIS’s budget are classified [2].

According to the Public Information Act (“Offentlighedsloven”), all actors within society can obtain information on the defence budget. However, restrictions on the grounds of national security, the defence of the kingdom and of the foreign political interests of the kingdom can be made [1]. Issues in relation to obtaining freedom of informations acts etc. is discussed in Q30 as they do not relate to the defence budget specifically. There is found no evidence of undue delays or restrictions of information requests in relation to the defence budget. This is perhaps because the information available to the public is – by this assessor – estimated to be highly comprehensive, detailed and thorough [2].

According to our sources, the approved defence budget is not published by the government. They affirmed that even the published one item figure of the defence budget is not accurate, and is in most cases misleading. The published state budget (1) does not reflect the reality as in most cases, the budgets are published after it has been actualized (2), (3), (4). Only the topline figure of national budget allocation is made publicly available with little to no breakdown of the budget (5). Other revenue streams from lucrative military economic activities remain highly secretive (6), (7).

According to our sources, although the topline budget is published, there are no details and all areas in the defence section are absent and not mentioned in the budget (1), (2), (3), (4). Only the topline figure of national budget allocation is made publicly available with little breakdown. Other revenue streams from lucrative military economic activities remain highly secretive (5), (6), (7).

According to our sources, it is almost impossible to obtain any information about the military budget of the armed forces. There have been attempts to obtain this information by journalists, and they were imprisoned just for asking (1), (2), (3), (4). There is no known mechanism for requesting information regarding the military budget. Most MP’s do not have access to a detailed breakdown of the defence budget. Moreover, Egypt does not have freedom of information (5).

In accordance with the State Budget Act, [1] the Ministry of Finance publishes the approved budget strategy on its website promptly following the approval. The Government of the Republic submits the budget strategy to the Riigikogu promptly following the approval. The defence budget is published in three different formats (Excel, summary in .pdf format, and a detailed explanation) and is available to the public in advance. For example, the 2019 National Budget was approved by the Riigikogu on 12 December 2018 [2] and both aggregated and non-aggregated versions of the draft budget were published three months earlier for public scrutiny. The final versions of the budget were later published on the website of the Ministry of Finance. Along with the defence budget, the explanation and the summary of the budget is published and available to the public on the website of the Ministry of Finance. Even if the language is clear and understandable, some parts of the defence budget are only published and explained in an aggregated form. [3]

Most of the defence budget is available to the public, except for the expenses classified as state secrets. [1] The Procedure for Protection of State Secrets and Classified Information of Foreign States stipulates that with respect to information about the national defence, the breakdown of budget expenses, budget execution reports and budget planning and investments, except information whose disclosure would not damage the security of the Republic of Estonia, shall be state secret. The rest of the budget shows the main activities planned for the coming year, the income and detailed explanation of it, and the financial support from abroad. Expenses include expenses on staff, financial support, and investments. All expenses are explained in a brief, but clear manner. The expenses marked as state secrets mainly include foreign intelligence expenses, but also, for example, ammunition. [2,3] However, it should be noted that some parts of the defence budget are explained superficially, in an aggregated form.
The National Audit Office of Estonia exercises oversight over the state budget, among other things, evaluating whether the state’s annual accounts are correct and economic transactions have been lawful. [4]
The Chancellor of Justice verifies conformity with the Constitution and legislation of general application either on the basis of an application or on his or her own initiative. In 2018, she pointed out that the state budget was not explicit enough and wouldn’t give a sufficient overview for the members of Riigikogu. [5]

The media does not generally cover the defence budget in detail, because of lack of public interest, as pointed out by an interviewee, a journalist covering defence issues. [1] However, whenever the media requests information, they generally receive a response in a timely manner as existing legislation requires this (e.g. Response to Memoranda and Requests for Explanations and Submission of Collective Addresses Act). In some instances the response has not been detailed enough. [2] Instead, the response includes an explanation of why information cannot be made public. There are cases where the government has refused to reply to specific media requests about the defence budget, as indicated by the interviewee. Because of the lack of CSO representation in the defence sector, there is no record of civil society requests for information on the defence budget.

The Ministry of Defence’s budget proposals are publicly available. [1] However, those provide information in an aggregated manner, following the rules set out in the Act on the State Budget and the Decree on State Budget. [2]

Revenue categories include:
– Revenue of the defence admistration’s construction agency
– Revenue from chattel sales and immaterial property royalties, and Other revenue [3].

Expenditure categories include:
– Defence policy and administration, Military defence, and Military crisis management.
– These latter categories are bracketed further down to: MoD operational costs, MoD productivity appropriation, MoD VAT expenses; Defence Forces’ operational costs, Defence material acquisition, support to voluntary defence organisations, and possible other categories e.g. in FY2020 budget appropriation for the fighter project’s costs; administration and equipment costs of military crisis management, exchange rate fluctuations. [4]

Justifications for the budget are given in the aforementioned category files as well as on a separate a letter of dispatch [5]. The final state budget and its amendments are available on the Ministry of Finance’s State Budget website [6]. The National Audit Office pointed out in its 2017 inspection on the planning and management of the Defence Forces’ material projects, that there is a need to clarify information publicly presented e.g. on the material preparedness of the Defence Forces [7].

The defence budget is available to the media and civil society in the aforementioned aggregated format. The budget and its amendments are approved by the Parliament (including discussions in the appropriate Parliamentary Committees), which have much wider rights to receive further information from the Ministries and e.g. the Defence Forces (inclusing matters enclosed from the public). Parliamentary discussions are available on the Parliament’s website and reports, statements and agendas of Parliamentary Committees on their websites [1,2,3]. Additional oversight of the defence budget is carried out by financial administration, compliance and internal auditing units, State Treasury and the Ministry of Finance, the National Audit Office and so forth as explained elsewhere in this study.

Citizens, media and civil society can request information from the authorities with or without a reference to the Act on the publicity of authorities activities. The act specifies the conditions under which the authority is required to provide the information. [1] Concealment of information, again, is based on e.g. the same act, the Act on information management in public administration and the Act on international information security obligations [2] [3].

It has been acknowledged that the authorities have problems in responding to the information requests. [4] There are problems in the public’s right to access detailed information which can be noticed by checking the open information requests on the website tietopyynto.fi and which has been found in research as well [5, 6].

The defence budget is proactively published for the public in disaggregated form on the Ministry of Armed Forces website, and increasingly on the Ministry’s social network accounts. It is accompanied by an explanation of the budget intended for experts, as well as a concise summary with clear language for non-experts. [1] [2]

The vast majority of the approved defence budget is fully disclosed to the media and civil society actors. There may be exceptions made for sensitive areas under the broad “secret défense” label, but the Parliament has the constitutional right to create an investigative mission and request the “secret défense” be lifted to examine the points of the budget at stake. [1]

As explained earlier in the study, France has a very broad definition of “military secrecy”. Five million documents are classified under the “secret-défense” label. [1] There is a Committee that controls “Secret-défense”: the Consultative Commission of the National Defence Secret (CCSDN). Among its five members, three are directly appointed by the President. Requests by CSOs, citizens or the media to declassify documents about defence issues such as OPEX, procurement, or arms exports are almost always rejected. [2]
General information requested by citizens, the media, and civil society about the defence budget is provided, but there may be occasional delays without obvious justification. There may also be a pattern of unduly refusing or redacting information for national security reasons.
For instance, CSOs (AIDL Association, ACAT and Yemeni civil society associations) have asked for information about which type of arms and military equipment have been sold to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, [3] to examine whether France could be complicit in war crimes in the war in Yemen. They were not granted an answer. [4] [5]

The Ministry of Defence provides a publicly available overview of the defence budget, including comparisons against previous years, information about systematic issues and the structure of the budget, as well as line-item budget details. Overall, the German defence budget is highly transparent [1].

According to the German Freedom of Information Act, everyone ‘is entitled to official information from the authorities of the Federal Government in accordance with the provisions of this Act’. It specifies that the entitlement to access to information shall not apply ‘where disclosure of the information may have detrimental effects on (…) military and other security-critical interests of the Federal Armed Forces’. In general, ‘[a]ccess to the information should be provided within one month’. There is also an appeals process for those who consider their right to information to have been violated [2].

There is no evidence to suggest that these regulations are not strictly upheld. The approved defence budget is proactively published for the public in disaggregated form. Citizens, civil society and the media obtain detailed information on the defence budget, which is accompanied by an explanation of the budget intended for experts, as well as a concise summary with clear language for non-experts [1,3].

The vast majority of the approved Defence Budget is fully disclosed and transparent to the media and civil society actors. There may be exceptions made for legitimate sensitive areas, but there is clear and robust oversight of the full budget by other suitable authorities [1]. The Defence Budget is very detailed and provides information on almost every aspect. It contains comprehensive and disaggregated information on expenditure across functions. The individual budgets within the Federal Budget – and therefore also the Defence Budget – are drawn up according to the criteria prescribed by law in the federal budget regulations. The individual budgets are divided into chapters and titles; the division of the titles is based on the administrative provisions on the grouping of the income and expenditure of the Budget by type. There is detailed information available on military R&D (Research & Development), training, construction, personnel expenditures, acquisitions, disposal of assets, maintenance and salaries. Einzelplan 14, which is part of the annual Federal Budget, comprises all expenditure of the Ministry of Defence. The budget outlines the expenditure in detail, stating the individual purpose and the amount of the planned expenditure. This information includes personnel (salaries, allowances), military R&D, training, construction, procurement/acquisitions, maintenance of equipment, disposal of assets and administrative expenses (Ministry of Defence or other services) [2].

All necessary information can be found on the Ministry of Defence website [2]: the technical and programme expenditure of the Einzelplan is published in Chapters 1401 and 1403 to 1408:

Chapter 1401: Obligations under membership to NATO and other international institutions as well measures relating to international missions;
Chapter 1403: Command authorities and troops, social security contributions, precautionary measures and supplies for soldiers;
Chapter 1404: Defence research, development and testing;
Chapter 1405: Military procurement;
Chapter 1406: Material maintenance in the Bundeswehr;
Chapter 1407: Other operations of the Bundeswehr;
Chapter 1408: Accommodation.

These chapters on programme expenditure are followed by Chapter 1410: Other authorisations and Chapter 1411: Centrally budgeted administrative income and expenditure, as well as the two official chapters: Chapter 1412: Federal Ministry and Chapter 1413: Federal Armed Forces Administration, Universities of the Bundeswehr and military chaplaincy, etc. [2]. This information is provided to the legislature in a timely fashion.

Information requested by citizens, media, and civil society about the defence budget is provided, but there may be some delays. There are few instances where information is unduly refused or redacted for national security reasons.

With regard to legal aspects: any Informationsfreiheitsgesetz inquiries (also known as IFG, the Freedom of Information Act) regarding the defence budget are processed in accordance with the legal requirements (regarding the protection of military interests and other security-sensitive interests of the Bundeswehr). If, after the respective individual case has been examined, access to information must be refused to protect special public interests, this is done on the basis of the exclusions stated in the IFG. In particular, the exclusions under § 3 No. 1 b) and § 3 No. 4 (Secrecy) are taken into consideration [1].

With regard to the press: the Federal Ministry of Defence (BMVg) and the Bundeswehr respond to inquiries from citizens, civil society and the media as transparently as possible and have a keen interest in open dialogue with citizens and the legitimate interests of the media at home and abroad. Answers are given as soon as possible [2].

As institutions of the state executive, the BMVg and the Bundeswehr respect the freedom of the press, support the work of the media and also face critical reporting. The only limiting factors are military security or the security of operations, the protection of personal rights and the personal security of members of the BMVg and their families, data protection, protection against cybercrime, statements about foreign armed forces and, if applicable, other legal requirements. This transparency is reflected on the websites of the BMVg and the subordinate civil and military organisational units, where updated information is regularly provided [3]. In addition, there are other social media channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, which enable responsive communication with users [4].

Overall, the BMVg and the Bundeswehr feel obliged to comply with the Federal Constitutional Court’s information mandate of 2 March 1977 and adhere to the relevant standards. With regard to the budget: the Federal Budget – and therefore also Einzelplan 14 – is publicly available on the website of the Federal Ministry of Finance [5]. The BMVg also publishes data on the defence budget.

The approved defence budget is proactively published for the public on the Ministry of Finance’s website (1). The budget is published in a disaggregated form (divided into 3 programmes and 15 sub-programmes) and provides detailed information for each of the sub-programmes on objectives, functions, results, and a list of operations and projects. But some details are deliberately left out, and some items are vague (2), (3), (4).

The Budget contains comprehensive and disaggregated information, which is disclosed to the media and CSOs on expenditure across functions. However, the information available to the public is very vague. It mostly details the projects the ministry will be working on and recurrent expenditure, rather than specifics on procurement (1), (2), (3).

Programme 1 “Management and Administration” is divided into: “General Administration”, “Finance”, “Human Resource”, “Policy Planning”, “Monitoring and Evaluation”, “Defence Cooperation”, “Research and Information Management”; and “Veterans Affairs.” The information that is disclosed contains details of the procured items (ICT, equipment, vehicles, office furniture).

Programme 2 “Ghana Armed Forces” is divided into “General Headquarters”, “Land Operations”, “Naval Operations”, “Air Operations”, “Military Health Service”, “Defence Advisor”. Information is provided in a disaggregated form for all the sub-programmes except for sub-programme 2.1 “General Headquarters” which provides information in an aggregated form (“acquisition of operational vehicles”, “acquisition of defence stores”, “acquisition of weapons”, “acquisition of specialist vehicles”, “acquisition of surveillance equipment”, “procurement of computers and accessories”).

Programme 3 “Ghana Armed Forces Capacity Building” is divided into “Military Academy and Training Schools (MATS)”, “Ghana Armed Forces Command And Staff College”, “KAIPTC”. Information is provided in a disaggregated form for all sub-programmes (4).

Although the budget is transparent (1) not all aspects of the defence budget are publicly available to CSOs (1), (2). The Ministry of Finance does have a Public Relations Office that is supposed to answer citizens’ follow-up questions, but it is unclear how much information it provides.

The approved state budget (including defence part) is published and made available to the public in partly disaggregated form in line with Governmental Classification of Income and Expenses with some budgetary explanation [1, 2, 3, 4].

Once the state budget (including defence part) is approved it becomes available to public on designated public data website. Consequently, also MoD decision on budget appropriation, showing more detailed data according to the Governmental Classification of Income and Expenses is published on the public data website [1, 2].

There is a serious and systematic failure to release information. This may be in specific areas or accessibility to requested information may vary according to the identity of the individual or organisation requesting information [1, 2].

The defence budget is published as a separate chapter of the annual budget at least six months before the budgetary year starts, as an integral part of the Law on Annual Budget [1]. Generally, budget proposals mainly consist of the main budget lines with minimal comments and no explanation, it is not sufficient for experts to understand, not to mention the general public.

Most areas are published; however, because of the Law on Defence and due to a general climate of secrecy, important elements remain classified and not available either to experts or the public. The available budget only explain very minor expenses such as support for sports club and foundations, while major expenditures only had a title, with no explanation, for example, 25 billion forints to be spent on handling “mass migration”. This applies particularly to the procurements connected to the handling of migration-related challenges. There is a government decree (316/2015. (X. 30.)) that introduces strong and comprehensive secrecy in procurements related to the handling of migration-related challenges [1].

There is an extensive description on the webpage of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on how to request for public data including budget details, and the public interest documents in chronological order [1]. However, depending on the workload to provide data, fees can be imposed on those private or legal entities who ask for the data according to Freedom of Information Law, modified in 2016 [2], which makes the response to requests more discretionary and less normative. Obtaining data might be challenging but not primarily because of delay, but if disproportionate fees (for scanning and copying) are demanded from the authorities.
In principle, the petitioner can appeal to the court to dismiss the fee, but still, the fees do serve as a constraint for public data request.
Investigate portal Atlatszo.hu, launched a website to facilitate and ease public data requests [3]. Through it, 66 requests were posted to the MoD, of which 11 were denied. The open database helps to track already requested data and information [4].

As alluded to in Q.12, no stand-alone comprehensive defence budget document exists in the public domain. A series of detailed documents in PDF and Excel format can be viewed and downloaded respectively on the Ministry of Finance’s Union Budget website pertaining to revenue, outlays, pensions and Demand for Grants [1][2][3][4][5]. The Ministry of Finance publishes an interactive presentation of sector-wise components of the budget displaying key takeaways. Interestingly, the defence sector is not shown on the microsite [6]. In an IDSA publication, it was stated that, “While budget documents are presented annually to parliament, the data provided by them offer limited opportunity for in-depth research. Annual reports of Ministry of Defence(MoD) are sanitised documents, often containing less information than provided by newspapers. Available materials on planning and budgeting are individual recollections of authors based on their subjective interpretations or judgements.” [7].

The topline of the approved defence budget is proactively published for the public [8].

As discussed in Q.12, no comprehensive unified defence budget document exists in the public domain directly from the government. A series of detailed documents in PDF and Excel format can be viewed and downloaded respectively on the Ministry of Finance’s Union Budget website pertaining to revenue, outlays and pensions [1][2][3][4]. An overview of service/department-wise break up of defence expenditure/estimates and allocations can be found in MoD’s Annual Reports [5]. Further information can be found in reports from the Standing Committee on Defence [6]. Reports from media outlets provide at times, detailed particulars [7][8].

A breakdown and analysis is at times published by think tanks offering greater clarity and insight [9].

Under the Right To Information Act, 2005, citizens can request and obtain government information [1]. Under Chapter II, Section 4 (b)(xi):
“(xi) the budget allocated to each of its agency, indicating the particulars of all plans, proposed expenditures and reports on disbursements made” [2].

The disposal of the request has to be in a timely manner. Under Chapter II, Section7:
“7. Disposal of request.—(/) Subject to the proviso to sub-section (2) of section 5 or the proviso to sub-section (3) of section 6, the Central Public Information Officer or State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, on receipt of a request under section 6 shall, as expeditiously as possible, and in any case within thirty days of the receipt of the request. either provide the information on payment of such fee as may be prescribed or reject the request for any of the reasons specified in sections 8 and 9:
Provided that where the information sought for concerns the life or liberty of a person, the same shall be provided within forty-eight hours of the receipt of the request” [3].

According to a recent 2019 report, the MoD has one of the lowest RTI rejection rates [4]. The 2017-2018 report of the Chief Information Commission (CIC) stated that the MoD received 80,233 RT applications but rejected only 4,043 requests seeking disclosure of information [5].

There are a number of regulations governing obligations and limitations for the Ministry of Defence, as a public body, with regard to providing information about the defence budget as a form of public information [1]. In Law No. 14/2008 concerning Openness of Public Information, the defence budget is not included in ‘exempted information’ (see Article 17, Section (c)), which includes information on strategy, intelligence, operations, tactics and techniques related to the operation of defence systems, as well as information on the amount, composition, disposition or dislocation of strengths and abilities in defence systems [2]. This rule is reinforced by Minister of Defence Regulation No. 2/2015 concerning Management of Information and Documentation within the Ministry of Defence. However, according to this regulation, only a summary of the financial statement information must be provided and announced periodically, at least once every six months [3]. In practice, the details of the Ministry of Defence’s expenditure budget are included in the appendix to the Presidential Regulation on the Details of the APBN, which is issued after the APBN Law and the Financial Note are approved. These APBN details are usually issued towards the end of the year before the fiscal year. In them, the Ministry of Defence’s budget is detailed based on organisational units (Ministry of Defence, TNI Headquarters, Army Headquarters, air force Headquarters and Navy Headquarters), functions, sub-functions, programmes, activities and types of spending [4]. The Financial Note, which is submitted together with the Draft Law on the APBN, also contains an explanation of the defence budget allocation, policy direction, policy targets and programmes and performance indicators of the Ministry of Defence for the relevant year [5]. These details and explanations are quite helpful for experts. In addition to the detailed explanation, a number of publications related to the state income and expenditure budget, including the defence budget, are also regularly submitted by the Ministry of Finance. After the ratification of the annual APBN Law, for example, the Ministry of Finance releases the APBN Information book which, with its visual format and infographics, can serve as a more concise source of understanding of the APBN, including the defence budget [6,7]. Meanwhile, within the Ministry of Defence itself, a Ministry of Defence Decree is issued on the List of Exempted Information in the Ministry of Defence. The appendix contains a list of information types that are exempt, that is, not required to be made publicly accessible. The types of information related to the defence budget that are exempt in the Ministry of Defence include details of the Ministry of Defence and TNI budget allocation plans, plans for the supporting budget for the implementation of TNI operational activities and evaluation reports on the implementation of national defence programmes and budgets [8].

Attached to the Presidential Regulation concerning the details of the state income and expenditure budget is the Central Government Expenditure Budget document. This document details central government spending by organisation, in this case the Ministry of Defence: it details organisational units (Ministry of Defence, TNI Headquarters, Army Headquarters, Navy Headquarters, and air force Headquarters), functions, sub-functions, programmes and activities. Among the programmes and activities are items such as ‘procurement of military goods and services’ within the Ministry of Defence, ‘defence technology and industrial development programmes’, ‘domestic defence equipment production and defence industry software development, ‘war military operations’, ‘military operations other than war’ and the ‘defence system modernisation programme. Although, the document does not go into further details e.g. weapons specification, budget for specific military operations and military intelligence infrastructure. This document is open to the public and can be accessed on the Ministry of Finance website [1]. Through its supervisory function, the House of Representatives Commission I oversees the implementation of the State Budget Law, including the use of defence budgets after the budget aproval. Commission I regularly holds work meetings with its partners, including the Ministry of Defence, the Chief of TNI and the National Intelligence Agency. While some of these meetings are not open to the public, especially those related to evaluation and realisation of budget, they show certain level of oversight by the parliament [2,3].

In accordance with Law No. 14/2008 concerning Openness of Public Information, the Ministry of Defence, as a public agency, is required to make information relating to the Ministry of Defence accessible to the wider community [1]. The Minister of Defence appoints an Information and Documentation Management Officer (Pejabat Pengelola Informasi dan Dokumentasi/PPID) to store, document, provide and make available public information services within the Ministry of Defence. To carry out the mandate of this law, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Defence issued Regulation of the Secretary General of the Ministry of Defence No. 2/2015 concerning Operational Standards for Public Information Services to standardise public information services related to defence [2]. To provide public information services, there is a public information desk at the Ministry of Defence office. In addition to coming in person, applicants can also submit requests for information via email, telephone or fax. Every year, the Ministry of Defence PPID issues an Annual Public Information Services Report. According to the 2017 Annual Public Information Services Report, throughout the period from January to December 2017, there were 23 requests for information submitted in person, all of which were fulfilled [3]. In addition, there were 27 complaints or requests for information processed through the LAPOR complaints portal and 1,600 complaints or requests for information submitted and processed by email [3]. Meanwhile in 2016, the Ministry of Defence said there were 57 requests for information received and granted, as well as 1,619 complaints and requests for information submitted electronically that were ‘accommodated’ [4]. The 2018 Annual Public Information Services Report claims that all requests for public information, especially those submitted via email, have been served and answered properly and timely. The 2017 Report details the time required to fulfil requests for information, which ranges from 1 to 24 hours for each request. Although the numbers appear to be quite significant, requests for information that are granted focus primarily on defence issues that are not budget-related. Issues listed include legal matters, procurement of goods and services, recruitment of civil servants and veteran-related issues. For these issues, information tends to be provided in full.

Segments of the budget are made available in the general budget. Some budgetary explanation, such as Iran is spending less than its neighbours, is provided, but it is superficial [1].

Some areas of the defence budget are publicly available in an aggregate format [1]. There is no evidence of proper oversight of the defence budget in practice by other suitable authorities, although there is evidence to institutionalise public oversight of the general budget [2] and the administration [3]. Certain areas of the defence budget, such as income from the armed forces private enterprise, are undisclosed, but this is neither made clear nor publicly justified. For example, no reports of the missile industries expenditure for 2018-2019 was disclosed [4].

It is extremely difficult or impossible to obtain any details on the defence budget, other than that published in aggregate format in the budget law. There is a serious and systematic failure to release information, and there are no reports of any individuals or organisations attempting to obtain information on the budget [1].

The defence budget is not proactively publicised, only scant information provides an overall summary of allocations. The 2018 budget stood out as the largest the country’s seen at $111.8 billion. A large proportion is allocated for government salaries (1), and a clause of the approved bill calls for the return of former police and security personnel that abandoned their posts during ISG invasion of Mosul (2). No further details of how or where ministries ought to begin raises concerns over future implementation and the added cost of training personnel.

Defence expenditure is often given as a ballpoint figure in the annual Budget Law (2018) (1), but the contents are not comprehensive and disaggregated information is not provided. Analysts discuss defence spending patterns (2), (3), but the GoI does not address its comprehensiveness. Disclosure, is complicated by the limitations of disclosing sensitive national security information, as a guiding principle, by MoD officials, which whistleblowers remedy by leaking official documents of decisions the government may not share (4). The scope of press coverage, regarding the defence-budget, is therefore only as comprehensive as the available facts. As a military advisor recently told the MoD, before political problems the defence establishment faces serious “capacity building and budgetary issues” (3).

No evidence of MoD specific email contacts where formal information requests can be submitted to the relevant department are available online. Available email contacts, displayed on the MoI and the COI websites, allow citizens to phone-in to report corruption/fraud. As for submitting information requests, it is unclear which mechanisms are accessible to the Iraqi public. Furthermore, the defence budget is organised with blanket sums allocated to 4 security actors, each of which has developed political structures of its own. It is unclear whether decentralised security actors retain the legal right to issue insider information or whether the right rests solely with the relevant MoD department. A former whistleblower (1) told TI that “the MoD is not always informed of the actions of all state-backed paramilitary groups and may not have the information to provide. Baghdad is not the only source these groups take instructions from, they answer to different ministries and commanders including pro-Iranian PMF commander Abu Mahdi al Mohandis and Qasem Soleimani [head of the extraterritorial branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Force] that offer selective support to different organs of the Iraqi state” (1), (2).

Only some parts of the budget are presented in a disaggregated form and budgetary explanation are superficial. In most of the cases, the budget is increased during the year without any detailed justification and transparent information (1). Additionally, the Israeli Ministry of Finance provides some information which is publicly available, however it is not very detailed (2). The Institute for National Securit (INSS) wrote: “According to the state budget for 2019, approved by the Knesset on March 15, 2018, the Ministry of Defence’s budget will stand at NIS 72.9 billion gross and NIS 55.3 billion net (11.5 percent of the state budget). The Ministry of Defence’s budget for 2019 represents the fourth year in the Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) five-year plan (the Gideon Plan for 2016-2020), during which it must start to formulate a new five-year plan. The budget includes the budget for the first year of the US multi-year aid package (2019-2028), which is less flexible than its predecessor. As in the past, this budget does not include adequate funding for a large scale security event. The budget was formulated without much wrangling between the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Finance, although differences of opinion between them remain.” (3).

Some parts of the approved defence budget are published, but not in detail and there is still evidence of oversight by other suitable authorities. According to one assessment, the unclassified areas of the 2019 defence budget amounted to just NIS 15.3 billion of a total spend of NIS 72.9 billion, equating to just 21% of the budget. (1) Areas of the budget that are undisclosed are neither made clear nor publicly justified. One of the most mentioned reason why the entire budget is not public are security issue and the protection of the Israeli citizens. According to the INSS (2018): “On January 12, 2018 the state budget was approved by the government, and on March 15, 2018, it received final approval in the Knesset (1) (2). Only general, very unspecific information is available to the public (3).

Information about the defence budget requested by citizens, media, and civil society is provided by the Ministry of defence, but only to a very limited extent. There are also delays without obvious justification and pattern of unduly refusing or redacting information for national security reasons (1). In most of the cases, information is not provided for security reasons. There are some publications by the media that inform about the defence budget in a very general and superficial way (2). Citizens, civil society and the media can access this information, however, it takes a long time until the responsible ministries and institutions reply.

The defence budget [1] — both the estimate and the final budget — as well as the Pluriannual Programmatic Document (PPD) [2] and the Additional note to the provisional state of expenditures [3], are published on the website of the Ministry of Defence. Moreover, from the respective webpages it is possible to access the Archive of this documents. The format of the available information allows both expert and non-experts to understand dispositions and acquire detailed knowledge of each functional aspects of the defence budget, nonetheless there is no explanatory note for non-experts.

The budget available for consultation on the Ministry website contains detailed specifications of each functional aspects of the defence budget [1] [2]. Moreover, it is also possible to access documents used by the IV Standing Committees of the Parliament [3], as well as those of the State Accounting Office [4], which are comprehensive as well. For some sensitive areas (e.g. information and security services) information is provided in redacted form. On the oversight of this latter data, please see question 21.

Offices for Public Relations of the public administrations have been institutionalised by legislative decree n.29/1993 [1]. Accordingly, the website of the Ministry of Defence presents a dedicated section with contact details of the various Offices for Public Relations [2]. Although there is no specific office dedicated to providing information regarding defence budget, it is nevertheless possible to present a general request for information on the defence budget. Nonetheless, according to the annual registers of requests for general public access to information [3], it seems that no request on defence budget has been presented since 2017 (less recent report available on the website).

According to Article 91 of the Japanese Constitution, “At regular intervals and at least annually the Cabinet shall report to the Diet and the people on the state of national finances.” [1] The approved defence budget is therefore made publicly available. The entire defence budget is uploaded on the website of the Ministry of Defence (MOD). One version gives an overview that is useful for non-experts (The Defence and Budget of Japan). In this version, the public can read about the planned upgrading of P-3C surveillance aircraft to extend their lifespan, the planned procurement of F-35A fighter aircraft, destroyers and submarines, as well as other important items of the budget. The document explains the rationale for the procurement, gives information on cost, and has maps, photographs and figures. [2] Another version has a complete breakdown of expenditures that should contain answers to the questions posed by experts (Detailed specification of general account budget under MOD jurisdiction, fiscal year 2019). [3] This version has sections on personnel expenditures, acquisitions, maintenance, military research and development, training, expenses for US forces in Japan, etc.

The entire defence budget that has been approved by the National Diet is uploaded on MOD’s website. This includes a full breakdown of the budget expenses. [1] One section of the MOD that is not mentioned in the budget is the Defence Intelligence Headquarters. However, the expenditure for intelligence gathering satellites is given. The Public Finance Law requests the Government to report every third month to the Diet and the population on the actual spending of the budget, the state of the national treasury, and the condition of government finances in general. [2] Tables showing actual spending are therefore published proactively on the homepages of the Ministry of Finance [3] and of the House of Representatives. [4] The Board of Audit audits the accounts of the Ministry of Defence when the fiscal year has ended. [5]. The Board of Audit has a strong position legally, and the Cabinet Secretariat has announced that the board may examine classified information in order to do its work. [6]

The public may apply for additional information under “The Act on Access to Information Held by Administrative Organs.” The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has a website that explains what the law does, how to apply, how to appeal if one thinks that the answer was inadequate, etc. [1] There is a webpage on the same topic on the website of the MOD / Self-Defence Forces (SDF) as well. [2] In a search of the mainstream newspapers Asahi Shimbun, [3] Nikkei Shimbun, [4] and Yomiuri Shimbun, [5] for the timeframe of this research and the Japan Times for the years 2015-2018, [6] no reports of freedom of information requests on the defence budget were found, neither was any mention of such requests found in the Japan Communist Party newspaper Akahata’s (Red Flag) list of articles on the MOD and the SDF. [7] The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has produced reports on the state of implementation of the Freedom of Information Law. According to a 301 page long report for fiscal year 2017, the Ministry of Defence received 4,900 freedom of information requests in fiscal year 2017, thereof about 2,000 concerning businesses surrounding bases. [8] The word “budget” is mentioned in two cases that were linked to defence. An agency that receives a freedom of information request must decide whether or not to disclose the information within 30 days. If it gives good reasons, it may extend the deadline by another 30 days. [9] However, in one case, ATLA had not, after 393 days, responded to a request for contract, budget and performance test information on an AAV7AI amphibious vehicle that it was procuring. ATLA answered that the documents included internal information of an agency that could bias public debate or decision making if disclosed, and this would be against Article 5 of the Freedom of Information Law. Deciding on disclosure would therefore necessitate consideration as well as discussion with other agencies, and this had taken time. [8] In the second case, 677 days had passed without the MOD providing information requested on February 29, 2016 by the Budget Committees of both Houses of the Diet. The Ministry answered that due to a large work load, not the least many objections to decisions in freedom of information cases, the Ministry had not been able to provide the information. [8] Persons may raise such an objection to the head of the agency concerned and have a committee examine the case. [10]

The General Budget Department publishes the annual budget for the state of Jordan on its official website [1]. This budget includes defence budgets but does not necessarily include details. Some examples of the missing information include procurement/acquisition and disposal of assets. Interestingly, all defence budgets are round figures without an accurate breakdown. In general, the Parliament does not scrutinise defence budgets, and the opposite often happens as with the example of the Financial Committee encouraging further defence spending [2,3,4].

As explained above, the defence budget published online is lacking in detail, such as information around procurement/acquisition and disposal of assets [1]. However, the fact that the budget had to be approved by the Parliament and the financial committee, demonstrates that there is evidence of oversight, albeit superficial, as is the case with most information around defence in the country [2, 3]. Therefore, the authority of entities such as the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Committee, the Financial Committee and the Jordanian Audit Bureau remain questionable, especially as most matters of defence remain in the hands of the King, according to the Constitution. This means that even if the Parliament, or any other committee within it, disagree with the budget, the King can overrule their decisions [4, 5, 6]. There is still a defence budget available to the public, although it lacks detail, and that budget gets approved by the Parliament, although superficially.

There is very little information that circulates around security and defence issues in Jordan. In 2016, the Jordanian Armed Forces prohibited publishing news or information about the force, except for official statements by the media spokesperson for the armed forces [1]. There is no evidence of an entity that responds to information requests about defence budgets [2]. There is also little freedom in the country, which means that citizens, civil society and the media would hesitate before requesting information about defence budgets [3,4]. These restrictions and the immunity the defence sector therefore enjoys, given the lack of an effectual Ministry, makes it extremely difficult for people to request information [5].

The constitution of Kenya under article 221 requires the Finance Cabinet Secretary to submit to the National Assembly estimates of expenditure of the national government for the next financial year for review. [1] The National Treasury publishes detailed national budgets, including expenditures and income receipts to the exchequer, on its website. This includes previous year’s budgets as well as estimates of the next three financial years that are available.

Before the National Assembly considers approval of the estimates, a parliamentary committee – in this case the Budgets and Appropriations Committee (BAC) – is required according to the constitution to publish, review, discuss and make recommendations to the Assembly. [2] In addition, the BAC is required by the constitution to consult the public, and the recommendations need to be taken into account when making recommendations to the Assembly. In the current financial year, BAC publicly published, ahead of debate in the National Assembly, a review of the proposed budget estimates for the financial year 2019/2020, nearly one month (June 4, 2019) before the start of the financial year in July 1 2019. BAC did not however publish the full budget per se as published by Ministry of Finance; rather, it publishes recommendations from parliamentary departmental committes submissions of each ministry. These submissions cover both financial and policy recommendaions from the budget.

In addition, BAC only publishes an aggregate of the budget in its schedules and specific areas that require amendments. A more detailed approved budget is published by Treasury both in dissagregated and summative forms on its website and is available to the public.

Although the comprehensive national and ministerial approved budget including MOD is fully published by Treasury for the public, there are sensitive areas that are not published. This prevents oversight institutions like Parliament’s Budgets and Appropriations Committee to conduct detailed reviews. BAC has in the past raised concerns over the limited information and breakdown of the defence budget. [1]

Therefore, it is less clear on how oversight of the defence budget is carried out both by Treasury and other oversight mechanisms such BAC and the Defence and Foreign Relations Committee (DFRC). BAC is mandated to review and publish the approved budget with a report of the budget estimates, financial as well as various policy recommendations collated from the different parliamentary committees that scrutinises specific aspects of the budget including that of DFRC. [2]

BAC also documents views from public and civil society actors which in tabled the report. Several major gaps however are clear from the oversight processes. First is limited and lack of clarity of oversight framworks for the budget. For instance, during in the review of 2017/2018 financial year, budget BAC observed that treasury often overlooks critical aspects pertinent to the budgeting process by not consulting the public when doing the budget. Second, BAC budget review reports largely include summaries of ministerial budget ceilings rather than detailed budget lines. Furthermore, questions have been raised by researchers on the capacity of departmental committees to conduct comprehensive oversights over defence budget spending. [3]

While the National Treasury does release proposed budgets in advance, according to the Article 221 of the Constitution, together with the Ministry of Defence they release limited information. [1] Both approved budget expenditures and budget lines can be vague and too general. Furthermore, despite having provisions to request information for example Access to Information (ATI) under Article 35 of the Constitution, like most government agencies, they are protective of the information they hold and therefore rarely released to the public. [2]

Furthermore, it is not clear from the framework provided by BAC, what information the public has access to during the public hearings. [3] Furthermore, as noted by BAC, the National Treasury does not consult the public when coming up with the Budget estimates.This is an indicator that budgetary statements are rarely subjected or accessible to the public before they are developed, reviewed and adopted by parliament.

The Kosovo national annual budget is regularly published and easily accessible to the public on the websites of the Official Gazette of Kosovo [1], the Kosovo Assembly [1] and the Ministry of Finance [2] as a single document titled the Law No. 06/L-133 on the Budget Appropriations for the Budget of the Republic of Kosovo for 2019. This law outlines the budgets lines for all institutions funded by the state budget and other sources, including the Ministry of Defence and the Kosovo Security Forces. This law also details the budget data regarding personnel wages, goods and services, utilities expenditures, subsidies and transfers, and capital expenditures [5], although this information remains superficial. Furthermore, the law indicates the budget allocation sources for the Ministry of Defence and the Kosovo Security Forces as the following: Government Grants, Own Sources, Financing by Borrowing, and Revenues from the Privatisation Agency of Kosovo [5]. The law also provides projections for this budget for defence institutors among other state institutions over the period 2020 – 2021. However, this Law does not provide detail around budgets allocated to training, construction, specific procurement and acquisitions, maintenance of equipment, and disposal of assets within the Kosovo Security Forces and the Ministry of Defence. Finally, the budgetary explanations included in the law remain superficial.

The Law No. 06/L-133 on the Budget Appropriations for the Budget of the Republic of Kosovo is published on the websites of the Official Gazette of Kosovo, the Kosovo Assembly and the Ministry of Finance, and is therefore accessible to the public (including citizens, media, and civil society stakeholders). Although the main coverage of this budget is disclosed, the information lacks in detail [1]. Indeed, there is limited data on budgets for training, construction, specific procurement and acquisitions, maintenance of equipment, and disposal of assets within the Kosovo Security Forces and the Ministry of Defence. No justification is provided in this law as to why the detail remains undisclosed.

According to the government reviewer, the defense budget, according to the MTEF and the budget circulation, is prepared in detail for each expenditure which is comprehensive, transparent and in accordance with the Classification System on the basis of Awailable Petty Cash. While the budget approved/decreed by law no. 06/L-133 is reflected in total in Tables 3.1 for the categories of salaries, goods & services, municipal expenses and capital expenditures, the table 3.2 reflects in detail the financing of all capital projects for 3 years.

The Law No. 06/L-081 on Access to Public Documents stipulates that all public entities (citizens, media and Civil Society Organisations) can access public documents and information [1]. This law is applied to all public documents produced, received, maintained, or controlled by public institutions [1]. With regards to documents or information relating to the defence sector, the responsible official for ensuring public access is the Director of the Department on Public Relations within the Ministry of Defence [2]. Representatives from the Ministry of Defence have responded that the information requested by the Kosovo citizens, media and Civil Society Organisations around budget issues are regularly accurate and provided in a timely manner [3]. Media [4] and civil society stakeholders [5, 6] indicated that they generally received feedback or responses from the Ministry of Defence without delay. However, recent articles published in newspapers evidence that some budget expenditures from within the Minister of Defence cabinet occasionally does not disclose or share information with the media when requested [7] This is specifically the case with regards to information on individual expenditures [7]. Meanwhile, access to classified documents is stipulated in the Law No. 03/L-178 on Classification of Information and Security Clearances [8].

The approved budget is published by the Finance Ministry every year in disaggregated form but often the categories that their expenses and revenues are divided into are vaguely worded (1 and 2).

The budget has little to no explanations in general and the language used is not easy to understand by non-experts. The Ministry also publishes the budgets and expenditure of these ministries for each month but it suffers from the same problems the annual report has (3).

Purchases are not tied to defence strategy.

Examples of vaguely worded categories of spending and revenues: “salaries; commodities and services; social benefits and capital expenditure,” along with “expenses and other transactions.”

Examples of language that non-experts may have difficulty understanding: “Current liabilities — amounts deducted from types of budget spending.”

Most of the budget is disclosed to the public, CSOs and the media but it does not come with a detailed breakdown of the expenses, explaining exactly where the money went (1, 2 and 3). But lawmakers and SAB officials have access to more details than the general public, which include the timeline of payments these ministries must abide by in acquisition details, for example, as well as more information about their property, and the cost of training and maintenance of arms, among other thing, auditors and activists said (4, 5, 6, 7 and 8).

It is extremely difficult to obtain information as a citizen through formal channels, especially since there is no freedom of information act in Kuwait, officials, activists and journalists said (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7). Even journalists and CSOs have a hard time pressuring the Government into releasing information about its defence spending in general. Journalists and CSOs actors can, however, coax information out of security officials informally.

The general defence budget is openly availalable and gives a full picture of the key categories of defence expenditure (e.g. the state budget for 2018 [1] and 2019 [3]). The defense budget is constructed according to the Law on Management of Budgets of Finances. The budget is published in categories disclosing sources of income and main expenditure categories (salaries, maintenance costs, capital expenses etc.). The MOD has published the 2018 budget in a user-friendly and explanatory manner, as an infographics to explain the categories and priorities of the defence budget. [2] Similarly, for 2019 [4]. The infographics also show the dynamics of the main categories of the expenses. However, it must be recognised that the MOD home page is complicated to navigate and it is a challenge to find the infographics. All public officials’ (from the Ministry and its subordinate institutions) monthly salaries are published every month according to the amount paid.

The general defence budget is openly availalable and gives a full picture of the key categories of defence expenditure (e.g. the state budget for 2018 and 2019 [1,3]). The Ministry of Defence publishes infographics to explain the categories and priorities of the defence budget (e.g. for 2018 and 2019 [2,3]). At the same time, some sensitive categories of the budget are not fully disclosed, usually for objective national security reasons.

As long as the information does not concern objective national security reasons, individuals, the media, companies and non-governmental organizations are entitled by law to request further information. [1] There is no public information available suggesting that information regarding the defence sector budget has been rejected.

The defence budget is found within the state budget and is made publically available in a disaggregated form on the Ministry of Finance’s website (1). However, it does not provide the government’s revenues and expenditure, in compliance with the Public Account Law (2). It also does not justify expenditures. It only offers the expected expenses for each department’s stationery and other running costs (3). As mentioned in Q13 Lebanon did not have a budget from 2005 to 2017 (4). The last published budget is the Budget Law 2018, the Lebanese Parliament has not approved the budget for 2019 (5).

The defence budget is fully disclosed and available online for the public on the MoF’s website as part of the state (1). A source confirmed that the defence budget available online is the same one received and approved by the Parliament and the Finance and Budget Parliamentary Committee (2). Furthermore, the CoA oversees the proposed budget by each ministry before the MoF combines under the proposed state budget for the CoM to approve (3).

No information was found on budget information requests. The Access to Information Law restricts information of sensitive nature such as national security and defence matters (1). However, the Ministry of Defence and the LAF command’s directorate of orientation, which is the first entity to submit questions, do not respond to information request in general. according to the al Gherbal Initiative’s report in 2018, the LAF command and the MoD did not respond to their information request though the organization only asked for basic information (2). Conversely, the LAF indicated that it responds to requests either with the answers or rejection (3). The DoO is the first point of contact and responsible for addressing any requests and questions (3).

Reports on actual budgets have been available since 2012 on the Ministry of Defence website [1]. They are published in a timely manner, with the most recent reports dating back to 2017 at time of this assessment*. Information provided includes the overall amounts used for various programmes, the money spent on different transport, equipment, salaries, trainings and utility bills. However, the information is not presented in a user-friendly format and might not be clear for a lay person.
*Disclaimer: the report for Quarter 1, 2018 was published after this assessment was finalised.

The defence budget is publicly available in PDF format. Although the budget is detailed (as mentioned in 14A), some information remains classified as “other expenses.” Secret items related to national security, private information and commercial secrets are considered as legitimately sensitive areas and are therefore understandably not disclosed. However, citizens are informed annually on the number of procurements which are kept secret.

According to the government reviewer, budget planning in Lithuania is based on programming principles and defence budget is fully disclosed in the form of the Strategic activity plan which is publicly available. The Strategic Activity Plan (3 years) describes detailed (tasks) activities by programmes and indicates how resources will be allocated to achieve the expected results.

There is no publicly available information about the statistics of Freedom of Information requests regarding the defence budget. From the NGO TI Lithuania’s experience, it usually takes up to five and no longer than twenty working days to obtain requested information [1,2].

The formulation of the annual defence budget is done internally by the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) and is submitted to the Budget Division of the Treasury. There is no single official document that details the defence budget or spending of MINDEF, although there are several documents released in relation to spending and financial management in MINDEF annually. [1] The approved defence budget, incorporated into the Annual Budget, is available for public consumption. [2] The nine page budget provides a general overview of management and the operational budget, broken down into several programmes and activities. The defence budget is non-transparent with much of the information in aggregated form and without defence-specific explanations, as is common for documents relating to national security, which are often protected under the Official Secrets Act.

The approved budget is available online for public consumption through the Treasury’s website. [1] However, the budget is general in nature and lacks transparency and detail. Although most areas of the approved budget are not published in detail, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) oversees expenditure and may request an explanation of suspicious dealings and spendings. [2] The Special Cabinet Committee on Anti-Corruption (JKKMAR) also serves to scrutinise suspicious dealings and spendings across ministries. The recently established Special Select Committee on Defence and Home Affairs may also provide oversight.

In accordance with the National Anti-Corruption Policy (NACP), MINDEF has stepped up efforts to become more transparent. [1] Most information, including with regard to the defence budget, is included in publicly available documents. Although MINDEF strives to be more transparent, there may be instances where information requests are denied for reasons relating to national security. [2] [3] Such questions include those on the procurement of defence items which directly relate to national security. Furthermore, the Official Secrets Act is observed first and foremost over freedom of information.

The two most recent finalised defence budgets have been made publically available and widely published by domestic media. Detailed figures are provided, but explanations and justifications are largely superficial. The level of disaggregation is very modest, with overall spending broken down into broad, generic categories, such as ‘training’, ‘investment’ and ‘other expenses’. Most importantly, there is no information in the budget regarding what the ‘investment’ – which accounts for almost half of the total defence spend – is specifically for.

The 2018 budget contains a breakdown of defence spending into various categories: personnel, materials and functioning, travel and operations, communications and energy, other expenses, equipment and investment, transfers and subventions. However, substantial amounts of defence spending are not detailed in the budget as many things can be financed through the numerous sources of off-budget defence income, as outlined in the SIPRI report from 2006.¹ The report also underlines that the official budget of the armed and security forces (as it appears in the annual Finance Act) is only a fraction of the economic resources dedicated to military activities in Mali.

The US Department of State determines that the Malian government generally affords citizens and noncitizens, including foreign media, access to government information.¹ It notes, however, that journalists often have difficulty accessing information on military procurement, contracts, or operations deemed sensitive by the government. The government may refuse a request by simply citing national security without being obliged to provide any further details.
If the authorities refuse requests for information, individuals can appeal to an administrative court, which must respond within three months. The government generally respects these rules, although officials sometimes request bribes to provide the desired information.
The editor of a national newspaper in Bamako told the assessor that the government will sometimes comply with requests for information, but only when it concerns information that will not embarrass them.² Otherwise it is virtually impossible to obtain any information from the defence authorities because of their readiness to invoke ‘secret défense’. The state is still experiencing a major crisis of confidence in the wake of what happened in 2012 and its ongoing inability to prevent attacks across large parts of Malian territory.²

The Federation’s Expenditure Budget, including the defence budget, is published in the Official Gazette of the Federation no later than 20 calendar days after being approved. [1]

The SHCP has published on its official site the budget of the Federation’s expenses per year. Volume III contains the budgets of the dependencies, including SEDENA and SEMAR, where the following can be seen and analyzed: the program strategy; economic programmatic functional analysis; economic summary by destination of the expense; objectives, indicators, and goals for results; and administrative economic analysis. [2] Budgets can also be found on the Budget Transparency platform. [3]

It is worth mentioning that an explanation of the defence budget is not provided.

Public information on the defence budget is not detailed. For example, the budget for the acquisition of weapons is not specific and is not justified. [1] Pursuant to the Transparency Law, defence agencies may reserve their information in general terms for reasons of “security” and so a less detailed budget is available. [2] [3]

The Transparency Law establishes a period of twenty days to respond to requests for information. As an exception, this term can be extended for a further ten days, as long as there are well-founded reasons. In this regard, they must be approved by the Transparency Committee. [1] Additionally, the law considers confidential information as that information that may compromise national defence. [2]

It is common that when requesting information via transparency on the defence budget, a complete or detailed response is not always obtained. [3]

The approved defence budget is part of the overall government budget. [1] It is segregated in accordance with the rules applied to all other public institutions. [2] A very general and superficial explanation is provided as part of the budget, and part of it is related to the Ministry of Defence. [1]

The defence budget is very general, and it is not clear whether it includes all items. [1] The budget contains aggregated data for each of the spending lines within the MoD and the Army. There is also a separate budget for civilian personnel. Some information about expenditures in defence is provided by the Government to the Parliament in annual reports. [2] According to the MoD, while there may be exceptions made for legitimate sensitive areas, there is clear and robust oversight of the full budget by other suitable authorities. Parliamentary oversight of the budget is, however, not effective, [2] while more detailed audits in the defence sector conducted by the State Audit Institution are very rare. [3]

The Ministry provides general information about its work and procedures, and NGOs lack the capacity to properly monitor the work of the Ministry and submit more sensitive requests. [1] The Ministry frequently provides no responses to submitted requests related to their expenditures, and some documents are claimed to be secret without any proper justification. [2][3] According to the Ministry of Defence, both the civil society and the media can get more detailed information related to the budget based on the Law on Free Access to Information and the Law on Media. [4] Also, there are few instances where information is unduly refused or redacted for national security reasons, according to them.

The approved 2018 Budget Law (and its draft submitted by the Ministry of Finance) is proactively published for the public in French and Arabic on the website of the Ministry of Finance (1)(2).

However, according to page 1538 of the 2018 Budget Law, the defence budget is divided into two categories: ‘staff’ and ‘equipment and various spendings’ (1). Art. 22 mentions the creation of 4000 jobs under the authority of the Administration of National Defence, while art. 38 provides 84.462.000.000 DH of anticipated credits for 2019 directed towards the ‘purchase and repair of equipment belonging to the Royal Armed Forces’ (1). This budget also incorporates other aspects such as a “varied income” (ref. 1.1.0.0.034.000); the budget available for various military establishments (military hospitals, tele-detection centre, masks-manufacturing unit for the royal police-force, and storage of equipment – ref from 4.1.1.0.0.34.001 – 4.1.1.0.0.34.0011; 4.1.2.0.0.34.001 – 4.1.2.0.0.34.0011); the budget allowed for overseas peace-keeping as well as the budget for military cooperation operations (ref 3.1.0.0.1.34.001).

The same document offers some explanation of this budget, but it remains very superficial.

The approved 2018 Budget Law (and its draft submitted by the Ministry of Finance) is proactively published for the public in French and Arabic on the website of the Ministry of Finance (1)(2).

However, according to page 1538 of the 2018 Budget Law, the defence budget is divided into two categories: ‘staff’ and ‘equipment and various spendings’ (1). Art. 22 mentions the creation of 4000 jobs under the authority of the Administration of National Defence, while art. 38 provides 84.462.000.000 DH of anticipated credits for 2019 directed towards the ‘purchase and repair of equipment belonging to the Royal Armed Forces’ (1). This budget also incorporates other aspects such as a “varied income” (ref. 1.1.0.0.034.000); the budget available for various military establishments (military hospitals, tele-detection centre, masks-manufacturing unit for the royal police-force, and storage of equipment – ref from 4.1.1.0.0.34.001 – 4.1.1.0.0.34.0011; 4.1.2.0.0.34.001 – 4.1.2.0.0.34.0011); the budget allowed for overseas peace-keeping as well as the budget for military cooperation operations (ref 3.1.0.0.1.34.001).

Each of these elements fail to give a comprehensive understanding of the approved defence budget, as key areas of the defence budget are lacking, such as budget for personnel, equipment, running costs etc.

Moreover, there is no evidence that additional information is given to the media or CSOs (3)(4)(5)(6), and there is no evidence of oversight from other relevant bodies.

Both individuals interviewed on this topic reported that it was impossible to obtain any detailed information on the defence budget (1)(2).

This statement was supported by the lack of information offered in the press coverage of the 2018 Budget Law regarding the defence budget (3)(4)(5)(6).

The Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (Parliament) always approves and publishes the Union Budget Law every fiscal year on the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw website [1]. Defence spending is included in the Union Budget Law. The most recent Union Budget Law is for the 2019-2020 fiscal year [2]. However, it does not include specific spending for the defence sector, but rather the overall spending of the Ministry of Defence.

Major-General Myint New, Deputy Minister of Defence, explained the defence expenditure for the 2019-2020 fiscal year but did not offer any details on spending for the salaries of personnel or regarding specific equipment that the military plans to purchase [1]. MP Daw Phyu Phyu Thin criticised the fact that there were no clear or detailed facts concerning defence spending and she pointed out that defence budget spending needed to be presented transparently [2]. Most areas of the approved budget are not available to the public.

Naing Swe Oo, a military observer from Thayninga Institute, said that one country’s exact military strength and productivity cannot be publicly available [1]. MPs criticise the fact that they cannot scrutinise the Myanmar military’s budget or defence procurement effectively [2]. Even members of Parliament cannot scrutinise defence spending. So, accessing the information is extremely difficult.

The approved defence budget is made publicly available and is available in a disaggregated form. The document contains tables designed for general public overview and then expands into a more technical breakdown of each category for expert review [1].

The vast majority of the approved defence budget is fully disclosed to the public, including media and civil society actors. However, some expenses, whose disclosure is not considered to be in the public interest, are categorised as ‘secret’. The secret budget for 2020 amounted to 9.9 million euros, 0.087% of the total budget [1]. Although the media, public and even the legislature is not given detailed information on secret expenditures, the Court of Audit scrutinises secret expenditures and reports any irregularities to the Minister of Defence [2].

Citizens, civil society and the media can request additional information about the MoD budget by contacting the communications department by phone, letter or email [1]. This is a right afforded by the Freedom of Information Act, which requires authorities to divulge information upon request ‘based on the public interest of the disclosure of information’ [2]. Due to this stipulation, access to information can be denied for reasons of national security or confidentiality. The Dutch Ministry of Defence is known to respond to Freedom of Information requests from journalists about even vaguely sensitive topics either by delaying divulgence as much as possible or by giving in to the request but blacking out most of the actually relevant text in the documents due to public interest or national security [3]. Former personnel members are known to say that this pattern comes from the top down and is used as a defence mechanism to avoid difficult discussions or responsibility for missteps [3].

The budgets for both MoD and NZDF are released in disaggregated form on Budget Day – they are tabled in the House and they form part of the Budget legislation . [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. Financial details are also provided with sufficient explanations, and an overview, to allow non-experts to understand the financial reporting in the Annual Reports [9, 10].

The budgets are fully transparent and adhere to the New Zealand Treasury budget formulation process [1]. An independent audit is conducted by Audit NZ under the aegis of the Auditor-General according to the Auditor-General’s Standards which incorporate the Professional and Ethical Standards and the International Standards on Auditing (New Zealand) issued by the New Zealand Auditing and Assurance Standards Board [2, 3]. Defence budgets are freely available online, with the Budget 2020 having its own dedicated website [4].

Request for information are handled under the Official Information Act [1]. This governs what, when, and how the Government responds to requests. The Government must reply no later than 20 working days after receiving a request [2]. An extension may be enacted depending on the quantity of material to be released and consultations required in order to do so [3]. This can always be challenged by the requester submitting their compliant to the Ombudsmen under Section 28(3) of the Official Information Act 1982 [4]. There are very few OIA Defence complaints to the Office of the Ombudsmen (only 1.8 per cent for the period January-June 2020) [5].

The approved financial law is made publicly available in the Official Journal (1); it provides some budgetary explanation but does not clarify different types of expenditures in detail. Furthermore, the explanation component concerns the overall budget rather than focusing on security and defence expenditures. The Open Budget Survey commented in 2017 that, in general, since 2015, Niger has limited the public availability of the budget (2).

The Nigerien defence budget is published on an annual basis as part of the financial law available in the Official Journal, in a printed and online version (at least for the past three years, 2015-2018). The budget details key items of expenditure. According to the 2018 provisions, the budget for the Ministry of Defence is divided into three sub-categories: control and administration of national defence policy (54 170 333 550, FCFA), securing national territory (72 589 000 000 FCFA), peace consolidation (861 200 000 FCFA) (1). Some services related to security and defence respond directly to the presidency and therefore do not make part of the “defence budget”. These include the following: the Presidential Guard, the CNESS, Chief of the Military Staff of the President of the Republic, Directorate General of Documentation and External Security of the State. The sub-category “administration control” includes “Office of the Inspector-General of the Army and of the National Gendarmerie, which also does not make part of the Ministry of Defence’s budget. Therefore, the defence budget is transparent, showing key items of expenditure, but it lacks specific details on some key budget lines, including intelligence services. 

Information on the defence budget, published in the Official Journal is generally made available to the public in the National Archives. However, more detailed information is not accessible. In the 2011 Administrative order documents are separated into “communicable” and “noncommunicable”, which implies a level of state secrecy (1). According to Art. 13 of the 2011 Administrative Order, certain categories of information cannot be accessed due to their confidentiality or due to potential public security hazards. It states:

“Details or documents which are not administrative in nature or purpose, and details whose disclosure can undermine the proper functioning of the administration and jeopardise privacy and private interests, including industrial and commercial/confidentiality, are not accessible or disclosable… [and]… any administrative details or documents whose disclosure could jeopardise, in particular:
– the confidentiality of the deliberations of the government and the responsible authorities of the executive branch;
– /national defence secrets;
– the conduct of Niger foreign policy;
– national, public and human security” (1).
(Consultant translation: French to English)

Nigeria has a poor score on the IBP Open Budgets Survey for 2017 (1). This indicates that budget transparency has reduced significantly since 2015 (1), (2). Few budget documents are published, and the details are not sufficiently disaggregated to enable effective scrutiny or review. Descriptions of budget line items are misleading or inaccurate. Transparency of the Budget continues to be an issue and was noted in the 2017 survey (1), (3).

Media sources often contain headline figures and some budget breakdown of the figures involved (1), (2).

Security concerns are often identified as the reason why information is not made available to the public. Freedom of Information Act requests are often ignored (1), (2), (3).

The defence budget is published on the Ministry of Defence website [1]. The defence sections of the national budget can also be accessed through the Ministry of Finance website [2]. The Ministry of Defence provides detailed information on all major defence and military expenses for the year just gone and previous years [3]. Budget revisions are also published [4]. However, expert explanations of the budget and simple summaries are not provided.

There are no public restrictions in reviewing the budget: it is available to all interested stakeholders. Article 2 of the Rulebook on transparency of the Ministry of Defence stipulates that all Ministry of Defence-related information and documents (except those classified) be open to public [1]. Within the budget, there are broadly defined areas that outline costs in a cumulative rather than a disaggregated form, but most importantly, there is a clear oversight of military defence costs.

Formally, the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Character ensures that defence-related information is released to the public [1]. The Ministry of Defence Rulebook on Transparency also regulates this procedure (article 5), in that the Ministry’s Legal Department and the appointed mediator receive and respond to official requests for access to information of public character (usually official documents). They aim to reply within 48 hours of the requests [2].
The annual reports of the Ministry of Defence access to public information for the period 2016-2019 provide the following data:
– 142 queries in total,
– 124 positive decisions on access to information,
– 3 queries forwarded to other institutions (holders of information),
– 12 requests rejected due to classification of documents,
– 14 compliants in total, of which 13 were endorsed and 1 rejected,
– 0 appeals to courts. [3]

The approved state budget is published on Parliament’s website [1]. The Government website provides details on defence budget, including a comprehensive explanation for experts [2]. In addition, a concise summary for non-experts is available both in Norwegian and English [3, 4].

The vast majority of the approved defence budget is fully disclosed to the public [1]. The only exception is related to intelligence expenditure (the Norwegian Intelligence Service), where apart from the overall budget there are no further specifications. The same can be said of the budgets of the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) and the National Security Authority (NSM) which, however, are under the authority of the Ministry of Justice and the Public Control. The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence is responsible for reviewing the budget of the Norwegian Intelligence Service. The committee’s members are given full information on the budget (including on classified items) at a meeting which takes place annually behind closed doors [2].

Norway has been part of the Open Government Partnership since its creation in 2010 and is considered to have one of the most open governments in the world [1]. The fifth paragraph of article 100 of the Norwegian Constitution (as amended in 2004) confirms that everyone has the right to access state documents [2]. The Freedom of Information Act allows citizens to request further information about the budget [3]. The act allows for certain exemptions in this regard: Sections 21 and 22 mention exemptions that may be relevant for access to information about the defence budget. Section 21 applies to exemptions “made in respect of documents when this is required by national security interests or the defence of the country” and Section 22 refers explicitly to exemptions in certain government budget matters. Section 32 of the Freedom of Information Act affirms the possibility to appeal a refusal to access information. Refusals to make information available (including where defence issues are involved) can be appealed to the Parliamentary Ombudsman for Public Administration [3]. The Ombudsman can express an opinion on matters that fall within his mandate, but does not have the authority to adopt binding decisions or to reverse decisions made by the administration [1]. If the administrative agency does not provide a reply within 5 working days after receiving the request, this shall be regarded as a refusal which may be appealed [3].

The defence budget is made public through the Sultan’s first decree of each year (1,5). However, no details are published concerning the breakdown of the budget on the Ministry of Defence website nor the Ministry of Finance website (2,3). Neither are defence budget details found in state media reports (4).

The defence budget made publicly available (1), but most areas of the approved defence budget are not publicly available (2). There is a complete lack of transparency in the breakdown of the budget, and the announcement does not provide any details about the general figure that is available (3), (4). According to our sources, the breakdown of budget is not even available for senior officers within the army, and it can change dramatically by Sultani Decree as it has happened in many cases (i.e. changes in the break down of the budget) (5), (6).

As established in sub-indicators 4A-C, civil society actors are severely limited to non-political activities in Oman through government licensing controls (1). Moreover, the Oman News Agency is the source for Times of Oman, Muscat Daily, and other papers in the Sultanate, therefore, media requests are unlikely. Civil society actors are limited in their activities, and threatened with imprisonment, as seen in recent cases where activists have been imprisoned (2). Both the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Finance have e-forms where one can make information requests (3), (4). However, it is difficult to know how effective information requests would be, moreover, the information requests on the Ministry of Defence appear limited to procurement details and the Ministry of Finance information requests are presented as “objections and suggestions”. Judging by the limitations faced by civil society actors, it can be argued that information requests are either difficult or impossible to make. Furthermore, even international NGOs such as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute struggle to gain information about the defence budget or spending of Oman (5). According to our sources, CSOs are not consulted and do not have access to information on the defence sector. Asking for information about the defence sector can probably be seen as a crime (6), (7).

The budget is available online for the general expenditure, but without details (1).

The budget has public expenditures on security and national forces salaries, without further details. The MoF and the PM and President’s Office are aware of the security budgets and payment devoted to that sector, yet that kind of information is not available for public (1), (2). Available information indicates that more than 30% of the general budget of the PA goes to security and armed agencies. Most of the resources go to salaries with no further explanation (1).

It is challenging to obtain information from any ministry or national forces unit regarding financial issues (1), (2). The researcher attempted to contact the finance department and also the head of the National Forces (Al Amn Alwatani, and the financial department, “AlIdara Al Maliya); however, they refused to answer stating that the information could not be shared. However, they are sometimes more open with institutions and donors (3), (4).

The defence budget is published and made available, including through the General Appropriations Act (GAA); however explanations are minimal and inaccessible to non-experts [1, 2]. Information is disaggregated by defence service with current operating expenditures (personnel services, maintenance and other operating expenses, financial expenses, and capital outlays) identified [1].

While most budget areas are published with some level of detail, oversight by members of Congress does exist [1, 2]; certain areas of the budget remain undisclosed, and at times these areas are left for the media and the wider public to decipher [3, 4].

Defence budget hearings are open to the public and the media and citizens can watch the proceedings online [1]. Citizens can also send information requests about the budget through the Freedom of Information portal, but responses are occasionally refused without obvious justification [2, 3, 4, 5].

The state budget, including the defence part, is published on the sites of parliament and government [1]. A detailed financial plan (budget order) of the defence sector, issued by the defence minister, is published on the MoD web site [2]. It is accompanied by an explanation in the form of a PowerPoint presentation for the general public [3]. No public explanation for experts is provided. As of April 27, 2019 the ministerial website contains no information on the 2019 budget, the last one concerns the 2018 budget. The 2019 defence budget order has been published in the official journal of the MoD, which is not as widely known to the public.

The MoD budget order, published on MoD website, contains information disaggregated to the level of main recipients (as types of armed forces), so-called budget holders of the second grade (as operational command of armed forces) and so-called budget paragraphs, which define the general purpose of the allocation of funds (as wages, remunerations, pensions, purchases of civilian equipment, of food, of medicine, of military equipment, of energy, of renovation services, of health services, infrastructure). At that level, all areas are disclosed, including military intelligence agencies and special operation forces [1].
No details are published on budgets of so-called budget holders of the third grade (military units and entities). The Budget Department of MoD is in charge of oversight of the defence budget at all levels.

From January 1, 2018 to April 16, 2019 the public information unit of the MoD received only one request concerning budgetary issues, on December 10, 2018. It was answered in nine days [1].

The defence budget is published in a timely manner in a disaggregated form [1, 2] and accompanied by an explanatory note [3]. While the budget report and the budgetary law are not intended for non-experts, the explanatory note is sufficiently clear for non-experts. There is a non-expert explanation of the general budget, but it does not include information on budgetary programmes.

There is evidence that a large majority of the defence budget is comprehensively available to all individuals with an internet connection [1][2] and is the object of oversight by the Directorate-General for the Budget [3], the Budgetary Monitoring Technical Unit [4] and the Court of Accounts [5].

Access to information is regulated and encompasses defence institutions [1], but the Commission on Access to Administrative Information (CAAI) reports suggest some, albeit limited, irregular information disclosure by those institutions [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Based on a comparison the CAAI reported, the defence and security sector is unlikely to receive FOI requests or responds in such a way that is not conducive to complaints.

The defence budget is not publicly available, and it is extremely difficult to retrieve any detailed information related to defence budgets. The government’s websites do not have any information on the defence budget. It is particularly difficult to access any information related to defence through official means, as there is no website or online presence for the Ministry of Defence’s affairs [1]. According to our sources, even senior level officers have no access to such information as there is no defined limit to the budget. As an officer put it ” It is an open budget” [2,3].

This sub-indicator has been marked as Not Applicable, because there is no defence budget published at all [1,2].

As there is no website for the Ministry of Defence and State Affairs in Qatar, there is no point of contact through which details about defence budgets could be requested. Additionally, the Ministry of Finance’s search engine does not show any results related to defence, and there is no access to defence budgets. According to Freedom House’s 2018 Country Report, official information is very closely controlled by the government, and the country lacks transparency in state and defence budgets. The State Audit Bureau does not share budget and government accounts with the public or with the Advisory Council [1]. ‘A 2016 law empowered the bureau to make some aspects of its findings public, but the security ministries remained exempt from its oversight’ [2]. According to our resources, any request for budget data from the MoD would not be answered with accuracy, if it were to be answered at all. The source added, “This information is confidential and not shared at all, even with other ministers” [3,4].

The Ministry of Finance publishes the approved budget, including defence expenditure, on its official website. It provides the major expenditure areas including the subsequent reports on budget implementation, but not with any explanation regarding the defence budget [1]. The defence budget mentions only six groups of spending: 1) the army, 2) economic mobilisation 3) nuclear weapons complex, 4) implementation of international military cooperation obligations, 5) research and development in the defence sector and 6) other issues of the defence sector.

63.9% of the national defence budget is classified [1]. For example, areas such as economic mobilisation and nuclear weapons complex are totally secret, while no more than 91.7% of military R&D expenditures were made public within the last 6 years [1]. The most ‘disclosed’ area of the national defence budget is the so-called ‘other national defence expenditure’, but even in this area, the percentage of classified parts has increased from 41.8% in 2016 to 71.2% in 2018 [1].

The federal law ‘On Providing Access to Information About the Work of State Agencies’ [1] and the law ‘On Media’ do allow citizens to request and receive details about governmental actions [2]. The federal law ‘On public control’ also allows federal and municipal public chambers to question state agencies on all necessary information [3]. However, neither of these laws extend to the information classified under the law ‘On State Secrets’ – which is most of the defence budget.

The full defence budget is not made publicly available, nor is it possible in general for citizens, civil society organisations or the media to obtain detailed information on the defence budget (1,2). According to our sources, the budget is available in abstract forms, but not available for CSOs, public or any organization. besides that, there are not active political CSOs in KSA(3,4).

According to our sources, the only available data on military expenses is an aggregated number. A detailed budget on defence has not been available to the public in decades (3), (4). In December 2017, the Saudi Ministry of Finance published information on the Saudi defence budget which included, for the first time, limited details on how the defence budget would be spent. Although, these details were very broad, for example showing that SAR 10.2 billion of the budget would be allocated for “new development programs and projects”, SAR 26.5 billion allocated for activities aimed at enhancing military capabilities and readiness, and SAR 3.5 billion earmarked for the military education sector (1). Previously, annual reports published by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency provided only “top line” information on the defence budget (2).

According to a financial auditor and another researcher whose focus is KSA, it is almost impossible to get information about the military budget. It is confidential information that could lead to arrest and imprisonment (1), (2). According to a Gulf scholar who focuses on the political economy of the GCC, “There is no detailed information available, to my knowledge, of the defence budget at all in Saudi Arabia. In fact, general fiscal budget reporting is relatively new. One cannot find, for example, any public information on defence expenditure related to the conflict in Yemen. There is not itemized accounting within defence reporting” (3).
According to another expert on Gulf affairs, “The simple answer is no. There is no means to access detailed information on the defence budget. There is no freedom of information act to support requests by the public” (4).

The defence budget is regularly published as a part of the state budget. The budget has been separated into programmes since 2015. The budget is fairly comprehensive, but it also became very limited in some aspects, as with the case of the two military security services. In the last few years, their budgets became fully invisible and integrated into common budget lines, thus becoming fully untransparent [1]. On the positive side, since 2018, the budget has been published in machine-readable (excel) form, thus increasing the level of accessibility of this comprehensive document [2, 3, 4, 5]. The budget is published via the National Assembly website [6].

The budget comes with the programme information consisting of justifications of programs, projects and activities, along with set targets and indicators for the next three years. However, almost all of these justifications and indicators are formal and not substantive. The indicator values are often the same for all three years or are modified symbolically. The explanation of military intelligence services is totally absent from the programme information [1].

The Law on Free Access to Information of Public Interest guarantees the citizens’ right to access information of public interest [1]. The MoD does respond to requests for information, though delays in MoD’s response to requests for information based upon this law are frequent, the requests are processed within extended deadlines permitted by the law. These delays are caused most often by the complicated internal communication procedures within the ministry. However, the MoD is traditionally one of the ministries citizens complain about the most for not disclosing public information under the pretence of secrecy [2, 3]. It is unknown how many of these complaints concern budgetary or financial questions. Moreover, a survey the BCSP conducted in July 2018 with journalists dealing with defence issues showed that around half of them received incomplete answers from the MoD, and 10% do not obtain requested information at all [4].

The defence budget [1] has consistently failed to provide a detailed breakdown of annual expenditure. For example, the published defence budget estimates for 2019 includes the following sub-categories.
Total expenditure:
• Operating expenditure
• Expenditure on Manpower
• Other Operating Expenditure
• Consumption of Products & Services
• Manpower Development
• International & Public Relations, Public Communications
• Miscellaneous
• Military Expenditure
‘Military Expenditure’ continues to account for most of the budget and likely includes major activities such as research and development and procurement, although the report does not make any attempt to provide detailed breakdowns. Characteristically, the total budget for 2019 is 15.46 billion SGD – an increase of 706.52 million SGD from 2018 – and ‘Military Spending’ is 14.887 billion SGD, up 723.30 million SGD from the previous year. No explanation was provided for the uptick in projected spending [1].

The defence budget [1] has consistently failed to provide a detailed breakdown of annual expenditure. For example, the published defence budget estimates for 2019 includes the following sub-categories.
Total expenditure:
• Operating expenditure
• Expenditure on Manpower
• Other Operating Expenditure
• Consumption of Products & Services
• Manpower Development
• International & Public Relations, Public Communications
• Miscellaneous
• Military Expenditure
‘Military Expenditure’ continues to account for most of the budget and likely includes major activities such as research and development and procurement, although the report does not make any attempt to provide detailed breakdowns. Characteristically, the total budget for 2019 is 15.46 billion SGD – an increase of 706.52 million SGD from 2018 – and ‘Military Spending’ is 14.887 billion SGD, up 723.30 million SGD from the previous year. No explanation was provided for the uptick in projected spending [1].

The Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) has set up the MINDEF Communications Directorate to address media queries regarding MINDEF/SAF matters [1]. It also maintains a Feedback Unit for public contact and enquiries [2]. However, despite these open channels, there is no evidence of the ministry releasing detailed information on procurement spending. For example, a media request of MINDEF/SAF’s procurement process made in May 2018 yielded only a superficial response from the MINDEF [3]. More recent examples include requests for information on planned and past procurement by local and international media, which were both declined [4, 5].

The defence budget is published proactively on the National Treasury website [1]. There are some accompanying explanations included in the budget document, but not all aspects are explained. In recent years National Treasury has been expanding the ‘Vulekamali’ budget information site to provide better explanatory information and analysis of the budget for each department [2].

All defence spending is disclosed by programme, sub-programme, and type in the DoD Annual Report, usually with substantial detail [1]. Allocations for armament acquisitions and covert operations are specified in terms of their total size, but not their internal contents and purpose [1]. While Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Defence has oversight over the DoD’s budget and compiles an annual Budget Review and Recommendations Report [2], in practice, its members are prevented from viewing details deemed ‘sensitive’ outside of a closed hearing; no such closed hearing has been scheduled by the chairperson in recent years [3].

While the publicly provided budget information is substantial [1], requests for more detailed information on items regarded as sensitive are routinely denied. For instance, any questions posed to the minister of defence and military veterans in parliament’s defence committees about acquisition projects are denied with the statement that they contain ‘security-sensitive and possibly classified information that is to be presented to a closed session of Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Defence when it is duly convened’ [2].

The media and civil society, including the general public, can access the approved government budget through Open Fiscal Data. This website is managed by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which discloses the fiscal data and budget of each ministry. [1] The defence budget for the past 13 years is available publicly on the website. [2] It includes information on military pensions, personnel expenses and military facility transfer cost. Explanations may by found on the DAPA website. [3]

The media and civil society can access the budget by detail including military personnel expenses, military facility construction costs, military pension and soldier welfare expenses in the published budget. [1] [2] However, the approved budget does not disclose information on a “special activity fund” allocated to the Ministry of National Defence, referring to expenses for investigating and gathering the information that requires a high level of confidentiality. [3] There is clear oversight of the full budget by the Board of Audit and Investigation of Korea (BAI), which is responsible for auditing the accounts of the Ministry of National Defence. [4]

Defence and security institutions are required to provide information, including the defence budget, to citizens and the media. However, information requests are frequently declined in practice due to national security concerns. According to Article 9 of the Official Information Disclosure Act, all information held and managed by public institutions should be disclosed under the conditions prescribed by the Act. However, the Act states that information regarding highly sensitive national security and national defence matters can be kept secret. [1] There is evidence that defence institutions decline information requests, including concerning corruption issues, based on Article 9. The 2018 Defence Statistic Annual Report shows that the number of information requests rejected by the Ministry of National Defence in 2017 was 334, accounting for 22.8% of the total requests. 167 cases were rejected due to privacy and national security concerns. [2]

The defence budget is contained in the national budget presented before the National Legislative Assembly and it is a public document in aggregated form. However, access to the budget by the public is dependent on the resources available within government departments. For example, government offices often lack electricity, printers, computers and paper. Thus, the budget, although a public document, may not be available. [1] This lack of resources may also hinder the posting of the budget on the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning’s website. Nevertheless, approved budget estimates, for example for the year 2019/20, can be found on the Ministry’s website in aggregated form. [2] The Ministry of Defence’s approved budget estimates show a clear break down of line items in aggregated form.

The budget is actually available to the public, according to the Right of Access to Information Act 2013, which states that the public has a right to such information on a public body. [1] Clear and robust oversight may not always be forthcoming. The committee overseeing defence matters lacks the capacity to fully scrutinise the budget and focuses on superficial aspects of the budget. [2] A trend observed in the past three years shows that there is little detail in the defence budgets. The 2019-2020 budget is an example. [3]

Government officials are often reluctant to share information even when they know they have to. [1] Although there is a law that enshrines the right to access to information, it is poorly implemented due to lack of resources. [2] Thus, the Right to Access to Information Act 2013 is rarely used and officials rarely provide information. Most journalists, activists, and the general public are also unaware that they have a right to access government information. There is also a great dearth in investigative journalism and superficial knowledge of government business which would enable journalists to show an interest. Poor journalistic training also hampers knowledge about accessing government information.

The Ministry of Defence publishes its budget on its website annually at the end of the budgetary year [1, 2]. The breakdown of the approved defence budget is relatively detailed. Furthermore, it includes an explanation of the content of the budget that accompanies the breakdown.

The Ministry of Defence publishes its budget on its website [1], but this is only part of the total military budget, generally accounting for around 50% depending on the specific year and the criteria used. Other items from the military budget are listed in the budgets of different ministries (e.g. the Ministry of Industry, Interior, Foreign Affairs) which are not published as military expenditure, making access difficult for the public.

International criteria for military expenditures, such as those from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) are not mentioned. The result is a substantial difference between the disaggregated military budget given by the Spanish government (the budget of the Ministry of Defence) and SIPRI’s figures of Spanish military expenditure [2].

Items not included in Spain’s military budget recommended by NATO and SIPRI are [3]: the passive classes of the military in service: reservists or pensioners, and war pensions for the victims of the Spanish Civil War caused by the 1936 military coup; the ISFAS military mutual that protects the military and is located in a section of the PGE called Other Ministries; the Civil Guard, a paramilitary body that is governed by the military and that depends on the Ministry of the Interior; the credits in R&D that are destined to the development of new armaments and that arise from the Ministry of Industry; contributions to international military organisations, such as NATO or to disarmament agreements that are in the charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; as well as the interests of the public debt.

The difference between SIPRI and the Ministry of Defence criteria (in local currency, euros, current prices) are as follows:
A) SIPRI Military Expenditure. 2015: €13,694M; 2016: €12,6724M; 2017: €14,298M; 2018: €15,460M.
B) Official Ministry of Defence expenditure. 2015: €6,738M; 2016: €6,792M; 2017: €8,632M; 2018: €9,552M.

Occasionally, there are mentions in the Defence Commission about the defence budget, when requested by parliamentarian groups (only five out of 31 sessions during 2016-19 term had an explanation regarding the defence budget in the agenda appearances) [1].

There is no specific information on the transparency website of the Spanish government about the defence budget, and all links on the budget refer to the global budget [2]. However, information about defence budget can be requested, although it cannot include expenses in other ministries unless it is separated by the Spanish government in its Presupuestos Generales del Estado (PGE) (General Budget) ‘defence budget’. The researchers did not receive a response from the Spanish government to submit additional information.

The most recent annual report produced and published online by the Central Bank of Sudan (CBOS) was for 2017. It includes information about the budget and the actual disbursements for the year, but there is no mention of defence, military or armed forces spending throughout the report. No budgets for forthcoming years were observed on the CBOS website [1]. However, a spokesman for the transitional government’s Sudanese Council of Ministers did announce a draft 2020 budget at a press conference in late 2019, stating top-line funding figures for key priorities, which included national defence. Notably, the spokesman said that the defence budget had increased from 33.88 billion pounds to 50.578 billion pounds, but that this now represents only 7% rather than 9% of the overall budget [2]. However, the U.S. Department of State’s most recent Integrated Country Strategy for Sudan reads: ‘The GOS reports that it spends more than 20 percent of its budget on military and intelligence, but it is widely suspected to spend far more, possibly from 50 to 70 percent’ [3].

This indicator is marked Not Applicable, given that there is no defence budget published at all. In 2017 and 2019, the International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey for Sudan found that only a pre-budget statement was made available to the public; projected budgets, enacted budgets and year-end reports on spending were not publicly available at all [1]. A review of the websites run by the Ministries of Defence, Interior and Finance, as well as the Central Bank’s website, yields no budget information [2,3,4,5].

Sudan’s de facto defence budget has long remained consistently and deliberately opaque. The International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey for Fiscal Year 2019 scored Sudan’s overall budget transparency 2 out of 100, the same as in 2017 [1]. Civil society organisations and the media, which, since mid-2019, have been experiencing more freedom of expression than they have experienced in years, could pressure the transitional government to release long-obfuscated numbers quantifying and detailing past and future planned expenditures on defence. However, since a significant amount of defence sector spending will likely continue to be conducted outside of official channels unless and until there is a plan for security sector reform and public financial sector reform, there is little hope of the public obtaining accurate information about the defence budget, let alone the detailed budget. Investigatory third-party efforts to obtain information, for example, on how the Rapid Support Forces are financed, have met with only limited success in recent years [2,3]. The de facto total amount or detailed amounts that Sudan spends on defence therefore remain uncertain.

All Swedish citizens have the right under the Principle of Public Access to Official Documents [1] to access defence-related information. After having been debated and passed in parliament, the approved defence budget [2] is proactively published for the public in disaggregated form, and includes explanations and summaries of the budget with clear language.

The vast majority of the approved defence budget [1] is fully disclosed to the media and civil society actors. There may be exceptions made for sensitive areas if it is determined that publishing the information would jeopardize national security, but there is clear and robust oversight of the full budget by other suitable authorities such as the Defence Committee [2] and the NAO [3].

According to the Law on the Freedom of the Press [1], information on public documents should be made available when requested. Information requested by citizens, media, and civil society about the defence budget should be provided as soon as possible, without systematic and unjustifiable delays. There are few instances where information is unduly refused or redacted for national security reasons. For example, all security and defence agencies are obliged to conduct annual ‘risk and vulnerabilty analyses’, and the Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), who are centrally responsible for these assessments, recommend that information regarding risks and vulnerabilties should ‘to the largest extent possible’ be kept public in the final reports, and they have rigorous routines in place for when information needs to be redacted [2].

The budget documents submitted to parliament containing the defence spending plan are updated after every step in the parliamentarian deliberation including the final version and have to be published in the federal gazette which is accessible online [1, 2]. The same applies to the four years payment framework [3]. The “Zahlungsrahmen” is subdivided into several specific credits including financing of current effectiveness and needs, Equipment and Renewal (AEB), Projects, Testing and Procurement preparation (PEB), Ammunition (AMB), and the property plan [1, 4]. This programme is released in an accessible language; however, while it discusses the main categories and provides explanations for them, they are not always in full granular detail.

The budget documents submitted to Parliament containing the defence spending plan are updated after every step of parliamentarian deliberation, including the final version, and the documents have to be published in the federal gazette which is accessible online [1, 2]. The same applies to the four years payment framework [3]. The “Zahlungsrahmen” is subdivided into several specific credits including financing of current effectiveness and needs, Equipment and Renewal (AEB), Projects, Testing and Procurement preparation (PEB), Ammunition (AMB), and the property plan [1, 4]. This document is released in an accessible language, while it discusses the main categories and provides explanations, it is not always in full granular detail. The Swiss Federal Audit Office oversees and audits all public expenditures done by the federal administration with only a few exceptions. This includes military procurements (Article 8 FKG). The office works closely with the Parliament and supports the Parliament in its oversight functions (Article 1.1 a KFG) [5]. In principle, the Control Committees “exercise supervisory control over the conduct of business in accordance with Article 26” (Article 52 ParlA). These Control Committees appoint three members as delegates to “supervises activities in the field of state security and the intelligence services and supervises state activities in matters that must be kept secret” (Article 52 and 53 ParlA). The delegations submit reports to the Control Committees (Article 53.4 ParlA) [6].

In general, the budget process is relatively transparent and most information can be found on the website of the Federal Assembly, which for every item of business, is continuously updated during the process and the final version is published in the federal gazette [1, 2, 3]. There is some evidence (although partially outside the period covered by this index) that sometimes information is not given due to “business secrets” [4]. In one case, an important project was stopped by the minister, after the media asked questions based on a leaked classified report that turned out to be unknown to the minister in charge [5].

The Budget Act requires executive branches to make their budgets accessible to the public. Taking the 2020 government budget as an example, the 2020 defence budget proposed by the Ministry of National Defence (MND) is compiled under the regulations of “The Guideline for Compilations of 2020 Budget of the Central Government” [1]. Details of defence expenditure are illustrated and explained in the budget proposal with disaggregated data on capital expenditure, current expenditure, transfer payments, and budgetary explanations [2].

The annual defence budgets submitted to the LY for budget reviews and approvals are made available in the public domain within a month for citizen watches and oversights. Except for secrecy budgets, items are well illustrated and clarified in the open budget book proposed by the MND which is to be made open to the public [1].

Under the “Administrative Procedure Act” and “Directions for the MND and Subsidiary Dealing with Pleading cases”, individuals can apply to the government for relevant information.The public can request budget information by letter, e-mail, fax or in person. The responses shall be sent to the requester in 30 days (the e-mail request should be finished in 3 days).[2, 3, 4]
Most information is made available to the public in a timely manner.
The Public Opinion Mailbox is an open and easy way for the public to express their opinions on requested information. The public can track the process of the case and fill in the satisfaction form on the website; there is no recent case about refusal to provide budget information to citizens, the media and civil society [2, 5].

However, the secret budgets are confidential and are only available to members of the LY’s Foreign and National Defence Committee and thus are not open to the public [1].

Aggreggrated budgets are published prior to approval, in the Minister for Defence’s budget speech, [1] and after approval in the Budget Books on the Ministry of Defence Website. [2] There is some evidence that the budget is accompanied by an explanation.

The published budget is highly aggregrated, making effective public scrutiny difficult. There is no explicit justification given for the level of aggregration in either the minister’s budget speecch, [1] or the estimates published by the Ministry of Finance. [2]

Information requested in the budget can be provided but delays are the norm. [1] [2] It should however be noted that it is not a normal thing for the public to request such information. There is very limited research on defence matters in Tanzania. Security sensitivity makes it difficult for people to even contemplate asking for such data.

In 2019, the Thai government disclosed the new defence budget figures for the 2020 fiscal year as scheduled. After the general election in the same year, Prayut held both the posts of Prime Minister and Defence Minister. The figures released by the government and approved by the cabinet (amounting to 233.35 billion Thai baht or about 7.6 billion US dollars) were therefore suspected of military influence [1]. Apparently, the vast and increasing defence spending carried out over the past five years under the military government has not been implemented with justified explanations based on specific security risk assessments. Prayut has only been able to cite the need ‘to upgrade the country’s weaponry and catch up with the defence capabilities of other countries’ [2]. Additionally, during a public lecture organised by the Future Forward Party (FFP), its leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit called on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to disclose details about its off-budget spending for the purposes of transparency and accountability since, unlike other state agencies, the MoD was apparently exempt from providing details about off-budget spending; in 2018, the MoD’s off-budget spending amounted to as much as 18.6 billion baht [3].

The documents published by the government’s Bureau of the Budget, including the annual budget allocation reports, include appendices showing the annual budget allocation for each ministry. However, the budgets are allocated under different action plans without comprehensive explanations [1,2]. Moreover, even though parliament generally provides enough experts and resources for the budgetary committee to oversee the MOD’s budget bill, the budget bill passed by parliament and the actual spending is overseen solely by the National Auditing Office both at a national level and internally [3]. Some areas of the budget are not disclosed or publicly justified either, as raised by Future Forward Party (FFP) leader, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, who revealed that the Ministry of Defence had not disclosed details about its off-budget spending for transparency and accountability. Unlike other governmental agencies, the Ministry of Defence was exempt from providing details about off-budget spending [4].

After the 2019 general election was held and parliamentary reviews returned, the Ministry of Defence defended its spending by producing budget figures as proof of its transparency in order to counter a proposal for defence budget cuts, which was put forward by the Pheu Thai Party as its campaign policy [1]. In the same manner, the government and the Ministry of Defence defended its off-budget spending after it came under close scrutiny from Future Forward Party (FFP) leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon said that the off-budget money was used to provide welfare benefits to its troops, low-income state employees and the general public. He also confirmed that its disbursement was transparent and subject to scrutiny at all levels. However, this defence was only verbal, with no further evidence publicly provided [2].

Outside of parliament, questioning the defence budget is simply impossible. Since the 2014 military coup, the NCPO junta has cracked down on freedom of information, first through the Martial Law Act of 1914 and secondly through Section 44 of the 2014 constitution. The junta has ordered internet service providers to censor any information that is detrimental to national security or defamatory to the NCPO junta. The NCPO has also closed 15 radio stations and 10 television networks and it has had several prominent TV hosts sacked for hosting a programme that critiqued the regime. Due to the lack of any effective and transparent anti-corruption policy (which covers senior military or military-associated figures), neither citizens nor the media have any formal access to information about the defence budget [3].

According to our sources, the defence budget is published with very limited information. All data on the civil side of the MoD is published, however, military acquisitions and operation costs are not published in a detailed form that would allow scrutiny of the MoD budget(1,2). The defence budget is proactively published for the public in disaggregated form. It provides general information about key expenses, information about training, construction, personnel expenditures, acquisitions, salaries, and maintenance. However, the level of detail of this information varies according to the nature of the expenditure. For example, while detailed information concerning training and military hospitals exist, there is only general information about military acquisitions available. It is accompanied by an explanation of the budget intended for experts but there is no summary for non-experts. (3)

According to our sources, the MoD and MoF do not publish detailed information about the approved budget concerning the armed forces. In general, the MoF and MoD publish annual reports on the budget explaining the shares of the MoD from the whole budget. This share is the only part not publicly detailed of the budget but is subject to strict control by specialised services of the Ministry of Finance during budget execution and preparation (1). Besides that, there are no justifications of any item in the budget.

According to our sources, there is a change in the last few years about the capacity to access information related to the defence sector. CSOs, media, and researchers would be provided with data after convincing justifications. Sometimes such requests are denied based on national security and protection of sensitive data (1,2).The right of access to information is guaranteed by the constitution which provides that the state shall guarantee the right to information and the right to access of information (3). Also, the Organic law n° 2016-22 dated 24 March 2016, related to access of information, allows citizens the right to access the administrative documents of public entities (4). Access to some parts of the budget of the Ministry of Defence can be denied if the administration judges that it harms public security or national defence (5). The Ministry of Defence has a section on its website dedicated to the access of administrative documents, which specifies the persons in charge who should be contacted to exercise this right as well as the procedure and forms allowing one to exercise this right (6). However, there are no statistics available about the degree of responsiveness of the Ministry of Defence.

In early October of each year, the budget for the subsequent year is delivered to parliament’s Planning and Budget Commission by the executive body for preliminary discussion. When the budget is delivered, some reports on the defence budget can be found in the national media [1]. However, it should be noted that specific items and detailed information about defence/security are not made available to the public. Only general information about the budget that is delivered to the Commission is made public. Another source where information is published about defence spending is the MOF (Ministry of Finance) webpage. This document entitled ‘Public Spending Bulletin (Kamu Hesaplari Bulteni)’ details the share of defence spending in overall public spending [2].

There are two major international resources for monitoring military spending in Turkey: annual press releases produced by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the military spending of its member states and the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database [3]. All the data produced by NATO and SIPRI is available online, along with some details of their definitions of military spending; but neither source provides sufficient details to enable full monitoring of military spending in Turkey. The Defence and Aerospace Industry Manufacturers Association (SASAD)’s annual performance reports [4] may also provide a perspective about the scale and items of the defence budget.

As exemplified by an article in Jane’s Defence Weekly [1], the most comprehensive open-source content about the defence budget only addresses the overall budget and topline figures. While, there are other relevant open-source materials available, they also do not provide much detail aside from top-line figures [2,3]. The fully detailed and disaggregated defence budget is not publicly available.

Some journalists and researchers apply to the CIMER, the Presidential Information Request System, to get more information about the security/defence budget, but all requests for information are rejected pursuant to Article 16 of 4982 Law on the Right to Obtain Information, detailed below [1]:

Article 16: Information and documents which qualify as state secrets, which would clearly damage the security of the State, foreign affairs or national defence and national security if disclosed, are beyond the scope of the right to information provided herein [1].

It should also be noted that there is a serious and systematic failure to release information in specific areas related to military intelligence, off-budget funds, procurement and the cosmic room. Yet the formal mechanisms are defined and the use of the Law on the Right to Obtain Information has increased recently. An increase in public awareness and free media is necessary to lift the borders of secrecy.

The approved defence budget is open to the public and can be accessed easily since it is uploaded onto the internet. It provides the breakdown of the different areas and how much will be spent on each item. The budget is broken down with detailed explanations for both experts and non-experts. However, the only challenge relates to the classified budget, which is not broken down; therefore, neither the committee nor the public can understand it.

There are are clear and rubust over sight mechanisms over the ministry defence budget, which which is over seen by the Defence and Internal Affairs, and the budget committees respectively. These committees have the over sight roles of scrutunising and approving defence budget. Finance Minister Matia Kasaija tabled the 2020/2021 budget estimates, with the Ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs taking the biggest share at over Shs4.3 trillion [1]. For 2019/2020, these are contained in the ministerial policy statement [2]. The disaggregated details are available to the media and all the interested parties.

The defence budget can be accessed easily since the copies are deposited in Parliament. Soft copies can also be accessed from the internet by any interested party [1]. The classified budget is not available to the public [2, 3]. The budget is passed and approved by Parliament after addressing and responding to all the issues which might have been raised by the relevant parliamentary committees.

The State Budget of Ukraine for 2018 (as well as its defence clauses) are published each year after its adoption (as well as the corresponding draft law and the draft law with suggested amendments) [1]. The State Budget of Ukraine for 2018 (as well as the previous ones) contains comprehensive but not disaggregated information on defence, has a superficial breakdown on expenditures across functions and does not indicate expenditures specific for salaries (salaries are a part of expenditures for the “Operating the system of AFU and military training”), allowances (allowances are a part of expenditures for the “Operating the system of AFU and military training”), military R&D (R&D is a part of expenditures for R&D, procurement, modernization and maintenance), etc. [1]. Moreover, the MoD started publishing in 2016 information on the MoD budget request (the document which also includes information on funds spent in the previous year making this document also a report and not only a budget request) [2] as well as detailed information on expenditures (for instance the amount and the average costs of armed vehicles procured) [3]. The approved defence budget is accompanied with explanations for experts [4] (corresponding explanatory notes are introduced to the Parliament jointly with the draft law On the State Budget of Ukraine), but without any explanation for non-experts.

The State Budget of Ukraine for 2018 (as well as its defence clauses) is fully disclosed for the public and regularly published [1]. Defence expenditures of the State Budget of Ukraine are not fully disaggregated [2], which makes it difficult for the public and the media to scrutinize it. Furthermore, classification and lack of information occur at the following stages when it comes to the procurements of specific items like battle tanks or ammunition through the State Defence Order. Moreover, the MoD started publishing in 2016 information on MoD budget request (the document which also includes information on the funds spent in the previous year making this document also a report and not only a budget request) [4] as well as detailed information on expenditures (for instance amount and average cost of armed vehicles procured) [5]. There is an Accounting Chamber that carries out the state financial (external) control function of execution of the state budget, including the financial control over classified spendings on behalf of the VRU [3].

There is no particular evidence on information requests regarding the defence budget. In 2017, however, the MoD received and processed more than 1100 information requests [1]. Moreover, the Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law conducted a study on the access to public information in Ukraine in 2017 and put the MoD on the 37th place (out of 65) in the criterion of submitting requests for information, providing a special place for working on documents and access to meetings [2]. However, there are reasons to assume that the MoD responds to requests on the defence budget [3]. Generally, the MoD provided information following 2500 journalist information requests in 2017 [4]. According to interviews with two individuals with experience in sending out requests for information, state authorities generally respond promptly although there are cases of delays as well as they sometimes experience receiving responses that do not provide the information requested or get refusals altogether [5]. Moreover, independent research groups, including ones close to the EU, stated that there are problems in the sphere of information requests, including on budget issues [6].

There is no information available for any organization or journalists on the defence budget. According to our sources, questioning or writing about the defence budget could be a crime, which is what happened to a British academic who was researching the UAE military (1), (2), (3). Therefore, there is a complete lack of information concerning the defence budget.

There is no defence budget publicly available, this sub-indicator is marked NA.

There is no possible way to obtain information about the defence sector budget in the UAE. The official government portal of the UAE and the website of the Ministry of Defence do not contain any information for a point of contact for information requests about defence budgets. In addition to this, the State Audit Institution does not release public information about its reports, and its remit is limited to federal entities and state-owned companies, yet no information about defence is published on its website. According to Freedom House’s 2018 Country Report for the UAE, “the government generally lacks transparency, and despite legal provisions, accessing public information remains difficult in practice” (1). According to our sources, an attempt to write or discuss the defence sector of the UAE can have serious consequences (2), (3), (4).

The approved defence budget is proactively published for the public in disaggregated form. It is accompanied by an explanation of the budget intended for experts, as well as a concise summary with clear language for non-experts [1] [2].

The vast majority of the approved defence budget is fully disclosed to the media and civil society actors [1] [2]. There is clear and robust oversight by other suitable authorities such as the legislative and the National Audit Office [3] [4] [5].

A review of the Freedom of Information Statistics [1] suggests information requested by citizens, media, and civil society about the defence budget is provided in a timely fashion, without systematic and unjustifiable delays. In FY 2020/21 for instance, the MoD received 4,465 FOI requests to address [2]. However, while the FOIA 2000 provides a right of access to information, it also includes absolute exemptions for the security services and national security (s23 and s24) and a public interest test exemption for defence (s26) [3]. Requesters who are refused information can appeal first to the MOD, then to the Information Commissioner’s Office – the independent regulator of information rights – and then to the Information Tribunal. Whether these exemptions apply to requests for budgetary information will be determined on a case by case basis. There is a general trend across the UK government of fewer disclosures and worsening compliance under FOI. But of the 10 major Whitehall depts, the MOD is one of the better performing ones [4].

The US defence budget is first published as a budget request by the President for approval by Congress. The 2020 budget, for example, was published in March 2019. The budget is released as part of the budget for the entire government and is accessible to the public via the White House website [1]. It is published in a disaggregated form in the appendix with detailed explanations [2]. Although disaggregated, more than 10% of the budget is for secret items and is therefore classified. This represents a huge proportion of the budget that is hidden from public view [3]. The text in the main body of the budget outline is brief and more accessible to laypeople. The finalised version of the 2020 budget, however, was not approved until 19 December 2019, three months late [4].

The vast majority of the budget is actively published and disclosed via the website of the Defense Comptroller [1]. An overview is provided alongside the financial summary tables, while specific details regarding programme acquisition costs are also provided. The topline figure for intelligence expenditure is provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, however, details and specifics are embedded in the defence budget, making them difficult to locate [2,3]. There is evidence that GAO reviews the defence budget materials although it seems that this oversight is focused on the management of the budget rather than a financial audit of the budget materials [4,5].

The DoD publicly publishes a huge amount of information on the budget. The issue for the public is knowing what to look for and where. With regard to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the Office of Secretary of Defense and Joint Staff (OSD/JS), under which the Comptroller sits, received 2,463 FOIA requests in FY 2019, on top of 2,398 outstanding requests at the start of the FY 2019. During FY 2019, the OSD/JS fully granted 254 requests and partially granted 627 requests [1]. There is no information as to how many of these requests relate to the budget. Desk research did not bring up any evidence of media or civil society having any requests for information related to the budget denied. There has been some recent criticism relating to a request by the DoD to stop publishing the unclassified version of the FYDP, which was later denied [2].

The defence budget has not been released to the public since 2016. The executive has not submitted it to the National Assembly (AN) for approval, nor has it made public the Budget Acts established for the years since 2016 [1].

Various social organisations have condemned the opacity of the Venezuelan state – which has failed to approve and publish the budget [2, 3] – and particularly of defence sector, given that it is the sector with the fourth-largest budget allocation, according to unofficial information [3].

This indicator is marked ‘Not Applicable’. The defence budget is not published. Given that the national budget is not published, it is impossible to evaluate the breadth of information included in the budget act. In recent years, knowledge of this information has been subject to unofficial information, which is limited. Information available for the years since is superficial, with only the assigned totals available and no detail on allocations to each agency [1, 2, 3].

When the AN-approved Budget Act was made public in previous years, most of the information was presented in summary form and the lack of information therein was not justified [4]. This was particularly the case with the acquisition of arms and military equipment, which were not reflected in the budgets despite information published by social organisations that laid out military spending on this equipment [5].

Although the constitution establishes a right to information from the public administration [1], citizens’ requests for information are constantly denied.

Social organisations have condemned this lack of transparency and the violation of the constitutional right of access to information through the constant denial of petition rights. This situation is aggravated: in the face of these refusals by institutions to grant information on the budget and other public administration documents, when judicial appeals made, the courts ratify the refusal [2]. Reports and academic research have also condemned the lack of access to information on the defence sector budget [3].

The Defence budget is published in full, in an aggregate form, together with the rest of the country’s national expenditure and revenue estimates. [1]. The national budget, which includes the defence budget, is published in the media, and it is also available at the government printers shop as well as at the Ministry of Finance for review. However, the budget lines are not detailed enough for expert and non-expert analysis [2, 3].

Most areas of the approved defence budget are not published in detail, as most of the data is in an aggregated form [1]. There is an average level of oversight since budget estimates developed by different units of the military are submitted to and consolidated by the Ministry of Defence, which in turn submits the budget to the Ministry of Finance, which reviews the budget before it is presented to Parliament. Parliament also has an opportunity to review the budget and approve the defence allocation [2].

It is extremely difficult or impossible to obtain any details on the budget [1]. There are no laid out procedures or channels of requesting defence budget information; however, one can approach the Ministry of Defence. But even the parliamentary Committee on Defence and Security has previously failed to get disaggregated data on the budget from the Ministry of Defence. Considering the provisions of the Official Secrets Acts, information relating to the security sector is usually declared classified, and ordinary citizens cannot access it [2].