The Palestinian Authority did not meet the minimum requirements of fiscal transparency and made no significant progress, the US State Department revealed in its 2024 Fiscal Transparency Report on Thursday.
Of the 139 governments studied, 68 did not meet the minimum fiscal transparency requirements. Israel met the requirements.
While the report says that the PA did make its enacted budget public, the data was incomplete and not approved by the legislature. It also did not make public its executive budget proposal or end of year report by the deadline.
According to the report, the PA provided incomplete information on debt obligations, including for PA-owned businesses.
However, the State Department said the PA did provide a mostly full picture of revenues and expenditures.
Suggested improvements
They asked the PA to take the following steps to improve fiscal transparency: Making its executive budget proposal, complete enacted budget, and end-of-year report publicly available within a reasonable period; Publishing information on debt obligations; Providing in budget documents a substantially complete picture of detailed revenues and expenditures for all PA ministries and institutions; Ensuring the supreme audit institution meets international standards of independence.
While the PA did not meet minimum requirements in the 2023 report, they were deemed last year to have made significant progress.
