Budgetary accounting and reporting practices in Bahraini governmental units: An empirical study

Sayel Ramadhan

International Business Review, 2009, vol. 18, issue 2, 168-183

Abstract: Each government engages in a full budget cycle involving the preparation of own budgets and supportive documents. In Bahrain, important administrative changes and major reforms have been implemented aimed at improving the overall efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, performance, accountability and sound budget management. This has been through State Budget Law No. 39 for the year 2002 which applies to all ministries and government organisations. The main purpose of this study is to identify, describe and analyse budgetary accounting practices and reporting requirements across Bahraini governmental units. The paper also contains a short description of the internal control reforms in Bahraini government departments. Questionnaire survey, structured and unstructured interviews and archival documents were used to collect the data. The results of the study indicate that budgetary accounting is the most important component of the accounting system in the government. Fund accounting is not used and the basis of accounting used is the modified cash basis. In preparing the budget, the line-item approach is used and questionnaire respondents are dissatisfied with this approach to budgeting. However, State Budget Law recommends that the necessary steps be taken to gradually implement performance and program budgeting beside line-item budgets. Moreover, encumbrances, budgetary revisions, and emergency budgets are used. In financial reporting, the statement "consolidated fund" maintains fiscal transparency. All revenues and expenditures get routed through the consolidated fund and controlled by the budget and no separate fund is permissible to credit receipts. Based on the findings, some recommendations for development and improvement are highlighted. In this regard, comprehensive implementation of performance and program budgeting is worthwhile for effective control on government expenditure, efficiency and accountability. Further, it is recommended that the accrual basis is introduced when preparing the government-wide budget.

Keywords: Accrual; basis; Bahrain; Budgeting; Governmental; accounting; Line-item; budgets; Performance; and; program; budgeting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096959310900002X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:iburev:v:18:y:2009:i:2:p:168-183

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/133/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/133/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

International Business Review is currently edited by P. Ghauri

More articles in International Business Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().