Accessibility and transparency in government public information

Abstract

It is interpreted that government information must be exposed to the legislature, the control bodies and the citizens in order to be accountable for what has been done and must allow, among other aspects, the management evaluation of those who have the responsibility of managing resources.

In our opinion, there is a very important relationship between transparency in accountability and governance. We emphasize the importance of incorporating better corporate governance practices in the public sector, as a generator of management control and risk administration in decision making at the central government level, as well as in state-owned companies.

It is for this reason that it is confusing to find, on one hand, regulations emanating from the Ministry of Finance of the Nation (Resolution 25/95 of the SH) that defines assets using obsolete concepts, which ignore the natural and cultural heritage. On the other hand, the Investment Account itself refers to transparency in accountability and also explains the concepts that allow different users to generate the necessary capacities for the understanding and analyzing public accounts, for whose preparation, ignore a significant heritage.

Although in a Constitutional State, transparency through access to public information is considered one of the mainstays of the democratic and republican system, from preliminary investigations, it comes up the lack of integrity in the information by not presenting the natural and cultural heritage in the Investment Account. It is the hypothesis of this study, that from the regulations that refer to the right of public information and financial administration and the control systems of the national public sector, among others, the need to incorporate advances in doctrine and accounting technology arises, in order to contribute to the accessibility and transparency of government public information. It is the objective to help in the adequacy and/or the updating of public government information regarding natural and cultural heritage to improve its accessibility and transparency and, thereby, contribute to objectively discovering the potential of the country.

A theoretical investigation is carried out. It is taken into account that the definition of assets of Resolution 25/95 of the Ministry of Finance of the Nation should be updated and, among others, the right to access public information (Law No. 27,275 Right to Public Information and Law No. 25,831 on the regime of free access to public environmental information); governance and natural and cultural heritage (Law No. 24,156 on Financial Administration and Control Systems of the National Public Sector, guidelines of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean -CEPAL- and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -OECD-) and the normative political principles answerability and enforcement are selected. Critical and comparative analyzes are performed and conclusions are inferred. Among the conclusions it is expressed that the construction of a bridge between current regulations and the most advanced criteria in terms of recognition, measurement and exposure of assets for the Public Sector is required, respecting at all times the spirit that should govern Government Accounting to represent the economic and social reality of the respective States.