Transparency of public expenditure accountability in municipal governments: a case study in the State of Goiás

Abstract

Objective: To identify the municipalities of Goiás that comply with the legal provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Law (LRF) regarding the transparency of public management accounts from January 2010 to December 2018.
 Methodology: With descriptive characteristics, the study carried out consultations on websites of city halls, Federal Audit Courts (TCU), States and the National Treasury Secretariat (STN). Data collection was carried out by means of a check-list built based on current legal provisions, and electronic mails to those responsible for advertising in each municipality when the data was not found. Descriptive statistics was used as an analysis tool, as well as Pearson and Spearman's correlation coefficient and Chi-Square (Pearson association).
 Results: It was concluded that there is no uniformity of information among the municipalities, despite the eighteen years after the promulgation of the LRF; Goiás municipalities partially comply with legal requirements; there are municipalities that do not have their own website and do not provide an access link to the transparency portal on their homepages; there are municipalities that do not publish budget planning instruments (PPA, LDO and LOA), as well as accountability for the realization of revenue and the execution of budget expenditures. In some cases, difficulties were encountered in identifying the link on the transparency portal on their homepages, and so it was decided to send e-mail to those responsible asking about the results.
 Contributions: The study contributes to the government of the state of Goiás, which is why it funded the research through the Goiás State Research Support Foundation (FAPEG); for the specific literature, because it presents an empirical study on regulations with more than eighteen years of effect and encourages discussion for future research.